


out of some dreaming tree

by jillyfae



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Battle Couple, Because that's my brand at this point, Demons, Dimension Travel, Fairy Tale Elements, Feathers and flowers and tea!, First Meetings, Good Friend Catarina Loss, Happy Ending, I thought this one was pretty easy going, Light Angst, Love In Every Dimension, M/M, Madzie is adorable as always, Magic, Metaphysical Sex, Metaphysical Violence, Not at the same time, POV Alternating, Quests, Romance, Transformation, but only a cameo, but the beta suggested maybe not so hey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 10:22:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15638793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jillyfae/pseuds/jillyfae
Summary: Demons, a hunt, aquest, a partnership that seems too good to be true. Something dangerous is lurking around the edges of their worlds, and Alec and Magnus are determined to do something about it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Oh gosh, there are so many people to thank for this one, I've never actually managed a Big Bang before, so it's very exciting that this is done. To the Bang and Lemon servers on Discord! (And everyone who complained with me on twitter. #WritingIsHard)
> 
> I am most especially grateful to [taupefox59](http://taupefox59.tumblr.com/) for the beta (and capslocking, thank you darling), [paperiuni](http://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni)/[poemsfromthealley](https://poemsfromthealley.tumblr.com/) for the beta and this gorgeous banner, and [cryptidbane](https://twitter.com/cryptidbane)/[alexandergideontrublood](http://alexandergideontrueblood.tumblr.com/) for the AMAZING art. Which is at the end, you're going to have to wait for it. ;) 
> 
> The title is from e.e. cummings [if the Lovestar grows most big](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?volume=76&issue=4&page=5).
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There was a beautiful boy on one of the side-paths, one of the more dangerous ones, a narrow line balanced between several different worlds. No, not a boy. Young, certainly, but not a child. He was tall, with a self-assurance that made it clear he thought he knew what he was doing.

Magnus was surprised to see, upon watching the careful way he stepped, the steady flick of his eyes as he scanned the shadows between the trees, that the young man was not entirely ignorant of the dangers of the Forest, and might in fact be right in his assessment.

He paused when he looked at the tree Magnus was in, almost squinting as if he was trying to bring something into focus, as if he could almost _see_. Magnus blinked in surprise. When his eyes opened again the man had moved on, slow and steady on the hard-packed earth. He was wary but not nervous; his hand stayed on the grip of his bow but his fingers never clenched, and he neither hurried nor let his eyes linger too long on one space.

Until he reached the meadow.

He went completely still. Magnus swallowed, almost slipped out from between the shadows he'd been using to follow him, almost moved closer. There was something about the line of his throat, the dark of his hair brushing against pale skin. He was possibly even more beautiful than the sunlight through the leaves. He was pretty before now, but there was a hint of honest _joy_ in the lift of his chin that turned the moment almost transcendent. Magnus stopped in his shadow, stunned.

The young man turned carefully and sat in the curve of the path, the one spot where it widened enough for him to fit. He sat precisely in middle of the uneven oval, his bow close beside him. He reached into his quiver, pulled out three arrows with black feathers. He lay them carefully around him, hinting at a triangle. He pulled out a couple of cloth pouches and placed something else at each of the three points.

The dryad in the oak tree behind him leaned closer, her branch-like fingers curling and splitting into myriad sharp tips, before she slid back into her tree with something that looked remarkably like a pout. Magnus narrowed his eyes, made sure to _look_ as he returned his focus to the young man, and breathed out a small pleased _oh._

Pretty _and_ smart. The arrows were made of oak, ash, and hawthorn, the warmth of potential magic settled in the narrow line of the shadows they left on the ground. There was a pinch of salt, a holly berry, and a cold steel arrowhead for the points. Almost nothing in the Forest could disturb the man through that ward. The man sighed, the former tension in his shoulders only obvious now it was gone. He pulled his knees up to rest his chin on them, kept himself as small as possible so as not to disturb his protections. All of that, so he could admire a meadow.

It was a good one, Magnus admitted. The trees opened out, and the wildflowers were blown in from at least three different universes, bright and healthy and improbable. The land rose up to an abrupt stop, the edge of a cliff making a sharp line between the plants and the wide open sky. The butterflies and bees were busy, flitting between the blossoms. The sun was warm, but the heat wasn't too heavy. The sky was bright blue, cloudless and endless, and Magnus found it impossible to look away from the way the sunlight caught in the man's eyelashes.

The man sat until the blue started to fade. Magnus worried that perhaps he wasn't as smart as he'd seemed, not smart enough to make his way back to one of the main roads before dark. Just before Magnus truly considered stepping out of his shadows to move him along, the man sighed and stretched his arms out to the side. He took down his ward, threw the used salt over his left shoulder, the berry over his right, and whispered something too soft for Magnus to hear. Magnus watched the shape of the man's mouth, his eyes much sharper than his ears, and it looked like _thank you_ and _blessed be._

Not only smart and pretty, the young man was _polite._ How ridiculous. It was a good thing he was just a human dabbling in the edges of the Forest, or Magnus would be in _trouble._

Magnus ignored the fact that he _was_ in trouble, if he was already trying to make excuses.

The young man stood, rolled his shoulders, returned the way he came. Magnus followed. He told himself he was just going to make sure the young man was headed in the right direction. Or just until he made it back to the road. But he couldn't tear himself away. He trailed the young man all the way to the edge of the Forest, and watched him slip off and away into the twilight, beyond the borders of Magnus' responsibilities.

He was from the same world Magnus had been born in, so many years ago. Magnus hadn't been further in than the occasional afternoon tea with Catarina in decades, perhaps a century or so. It looked a little different than he remembered, something about the shade of the sky or the weight of the clouds, but it smelled much the same, green and dusty, and Magnus lingered for awhile just breathing it in.

* * *

It was too quiet at home.

It had been unusually quiet in the woods today, but it was a different sort of stillness. No matter how quiet, the woods were always still full, still alive, still magical. This afternoon Alec had kept thinking he'd seen someone just past the edge of his vision, a glint of gold in the shadows. He hadn't found anything strange though, hadn't seen any unusual tracks, heard any unknown sounds, hadn't felt any weight in the wind, any odd twists in the air. Hadn't been able to see anyone, not really, nothing beyond the usual flickers of the forest's assorted magics in his peripheral vision.

Mysterious glints in this particular forest were usually something to worry about, especially considering the path he took to reach his favorite view, but Alec couldn't work up real concern. There'd been no sharp twists against his senses, no hint it didn't belong, no taste of fear or anger under the scent of the flowers. Whoever or whatever it was had felt... _warm?_

Which made no sense at all. But Alec hoped they'd still be there next time he wandered between the trees. He hoped he'd get a better glimpse. Wishes like that were reckless, especially there, but the idea made him smile, so he let it settle in his thoughts.

The woods might be dangerous, but they were never dull, and never petty or purposefully cruel.

Home was just _empty._

Alec missed Jace and Izzy, missed his mother. He knew they wanted him to move to Alicante with them, but Alec just couldn't. He was glad his family was happy there, was delighted to receive Izzy's latest letter, telling him she thought she'd finish her Masterwork by next season, would be recognized by the Armorer's Guild within the year. Alec read every word of Jace's letters, every tale of a drunken brawl broken up, of a lost child found, of a horse thief stopped. He was a good guard, and their mother was much happier keeping house for them there, getting a second chance to be the person she wanted to be, rather than the one she'd had to be for her husband, her children. It was all so much better than if she'd stayed here, haunted by memories of her youngest son.

They were all happier there, which made Alec happier too. He'd go to visit for solstice, but he wouldn't stay. What would he do there? There were no woods to hunt in, no need for a tracker or an archer unless he wanted to chase _people._ He decidedly did not want that.

Besides, he'd hate to think no one was here to say Max's name during the next Festival for the Dead. He'd miss the land here, the people. The woods, the familiar tug in his chest as he made his way deeper between the trees. He'd miss his meadow.

He'd missed Hodge today. Obviously the meadow had brought up old memories, Hodge taking them there, showing them how to walk the woods safely, how to _see_ the path, even when it was hard to look at, how to avoid the edges of things that weren't quite... mundane.

Alec had kept going to the woods long after Izzy and Jace outgrew their trips. Hodge had been the one who'd given him the wood for his ward arrows, the one who'd helped him ask the ravens for the feathers to fletch them, the one who'd introduced him to Mistress Catarina so he knew who to ask for help if he ran out of holly berries out of season.

Hodge was the only one who'd never expected anything from him, who'd only wanted to teach, only wanted to keep Alec safe. The one Alec had wanted to see when he came back from his time in the Queen's Troops. The only one he thought might understand why he couldn't go back, why he didn't want to fight anymore.

That he didn't want to kill anymore.

But by then it had been too late.

Which was of course the final reason Alec would never leave, the real one. He would never forgive himself if it happened again, if he wasn't here to stop it, as he hadn't been here to save Max and Hodge.

Alec blew out a breath and shook his head. Maybe he'd go to the cemetery tomorrow, maybe it would help him settle. For now he just needed dinner and a good night's sleep.

Not that he had the faintest clue how to guarantee the second, but that was no reason to stop trying.

* * *

Magnus saw him again early the next morning when the ground was still misty and the sky wasn't yet blue. The young man was in the Forest, not on a path at all. He was near the Border, in a section rooted enough in the world he was from that it was unlikely to shift. Magnus wondered if he knew, somehow, could recognize the steadiness of the ground beneath him despite being human. Or if he didn't know, whether his risk was one of recklessness or bravery.

For flowers again?

As coincidences go, it was certainly a promising one.

The young man was picking some this time, not just looking _,_ his hands gentle as he framed each blossom before deciding if he'd take it or not. It was easier to see the shape of him this time, now that he wasn't so guarded with each movement, now that he didn't have to be so careful to stay within the edges of a path or a ward. It was easier to admire a pleasant breadth of shoulder and length of leg, to realize again how beautiful he was, and Magnus stepped out of the trees for a closer look. The man startled, but didn’t drop the flowers. He put them carefully on top of his quiver, and his hand settled on the pommel of the dagger on his other hip.

He didn’t draw it. Neither did he reach for the bow strapped to his back, despite the fact that Magnus had appeared out of nowhere. He didn't draw a weapon when he met Magnus’ gaze, and saw that Magnus didn't have human eyes.

He lifted his chin, clearly unafraid, but his eyes flicked down, and up, and down again. _Uncertain?_ Magnus spread his hands in apology, and stopped about two steps further away than was strictly _conversational,_ unwilling to startle the young man any further.

But instead of any of the reactions Magnus had expected, he _smiled._ It was a disarmingly sweet smile, especially in comparison to the cautious way he'd moved the day before. He stepped closer, Magnus _felt_ how close he was now, a tingle against Magnus' skin.

The young man looked into Magnus' eyes. Which wasn't unusual in and of itself, but his expression was like nothing Magnus had ever seen; he wasn't afraid or calculating, he almost looked... satisfied?

Magnus blinked. The young man shook his head, and his smile curled into something sharp. It seemed to be aimed at himself rather than Magnus, a hint of self-deprecation that Magnus couldn't quite interpret.

"Thank you for the company yesterday." The young man broke the silence first. "It's been a long time since anyone came out here with me."

"I think you have that backwards," Magnus tilted his head, ignored the tightness in his chest at the realization that he'd been _recognized,_ that somehow this young human had glimpsed something of him through the Forest's magic. "It's been a long time since I had such an intriguing visitor here."

"I've been visiting for years."

"What a tragedy we've never been properly introduced, then." Magnus' voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he realized they'd both continued to edge closer, half-a-step by half-a-step. The young man was _taller_ than Magnus, not by much, not that Magnus hadn't noticed that before, but there was something intoxicating about looking _up_ at someone from this close, close enough now to give Magnus a view of lovely eyes, clear and wide and hazel, surrounded by thick dark lashes.

Those eyes flicked down, and up again, and there was a hint of something that might be a blush warming his face before he spoke. "You can call me Alec."

It was important, his phrasing, making it clear he wasn't giving out a name, or not all of one, and neither did he ask for one from Magnus. He just waited, back straight and feet planted and not a hint of a fidget anywhere.

Magnus wondered what he'd do if Magnus reached out and let his fingers trace the line of the leather strap across his chest, the one that held his bow on his back. It was surprisingly difficult to resist the impulse to do just that, and Magnus swallowed before he spoke. "Magnus."

Alec sighed, soft but not quite soundless, deep enough it made his shoulders shift. "It's nice to meet you, Magnus."

"It's nice to be met." Magnus was aware he wasn't making sense, but there was something so soft in the way Alec _almost_ smiled, as if he knew what Magnus meant, as if he knew how most people reacted to someone so clearly part of the Forest's magic. How most people would think they'd met some _thing_ that was part of the Forest's magic, not a person at all.

Alec seemed to like doing what other people didn't. He might be Magnus' new favorite human. Not that Magnus had spent time with a human for a few hundred years, so there wasn't really any competition. But even if there were... Magnus wanted to stay, had the urge to linger longer than was wise, wanted to make Alec smile again, wanted to see how his face changed when he laughed, wanted to know... something new.

Magnus had seen this pretty young human twice, and he wanted to trust him.

"So are you a particularly adventurous flower-seller when you're not here?" Magnus asked, aiming a quick nod in the direction of Alec's collection. "There seems to be a theme."

Alec huffed out a breath. His eyes turned sad, which was quite the opposite of what Magnus had been hoping for. "I'm visiting family today."

"Family you don't w—" Magnus broke off as he looked at the spread of the plants around them, marsh lilies and wild marigold. He remembered his mother's funeral, so many years ago. "Oh. My condolences."

"Thank you." Alec shrugged, an awkward lift of shoulders that implied he was unused to sympathy.

"I should let you finish, then." Magnus stepped back, ignored the ache in his chest that wanted to push him forward instead. "Perhaps we'll meet under more pleasant circumstances, next time?"

"I'd like that." Alec didn't move at first, didn't step back. He seemed unwilling to break the trembling silence. Eventually he glanced up at the sky and swallowed. He stepped back and turned away, but he gave Magnus a shy sideways glance before he walked out of sight.

* * *

Golden eyes.

Yesterday had been _golden eyes_.

Beautiful golden eyes.

Alec shook his head, pulled the old flowers out of the vase on the wall by Max's name and replaced them with the ones he'd picked this morning.

No one else on this stretch of the wall still got visitors; it was only ever Alec's flowers in the vase. He sat down on the bench and pulled out the latest letter from Alicante to read. He kept losing track of his place though, his voice slowly fading as he thought more about Magnus than the words on the page.

Which was especially troublesome with Jace's section, as he had _terrible_ hand-writing. Alec mangled the same paragraph three times without figuring out the name of the other guardsman involved in the story before he finally gave up and tucked the pages back into his jacket pocket.

"Well, that's a lost cause, isn't it?" Alec sighed. "I suppose I have news of my own for once, so I don't have to just read the letters."

Alec reached out and traced the _M-a-x-w_ with his finger tip before sighing again.

"Not that I apparently have any clue what to do with my own news." Alec rolled his eyes. If Max _were_ here, that was what he'd do. "I miss you. Not that that's news. I met a forest spirit of some sort, and he's so gorgeous I almost forgot how to talk and just turned around and slunk away without saying good-bye?"

Alec snorted. That would have gotten him more eye-rolls and a couple smacks on the shoulder if his siblings were here.

"Also I have no idea how to see him again?" Alec spread his hands as he shrugged. "If that's possible. If he even wants to see me again? If the woods want us to meet again?"

Alec huffed out a breath, the _huh_ almost catching in his throat. Magnus had said _next time_. He'd seemed to mean it. He could be lying, but Alec didn't think so. Alec thought him trustworthy. For no apparent reason, beyond the fact that Alec liked the woods and the woods clearly liked Magnus. And seemed to usually like Alec too, since Alec had never met anyone else who could go as deep as he did and still come back out. Using a magical forest that sometimes ate people as a character reference was probably the strangest thing Alec had ever done. But he didn't regret it. The very thought of seeing Magnus again made it both easier for Alec to take in a breath than it had been in years, and impossible to keep that breath steady.

Even with the forest's apparent blessing, Alec had no idea why Magnus would want to see him again. Magnus was gorgeous and powerful and _part of the fucking woods_ and Alec was just... Alec.

"Magic's weird." Alec's voice felt softer than usual with his bewilderment, but he didn't mind if Max heard how confused he was. That's what family was for. "I have no idea what's happening."

Alec could almost hear Max laughing at him in his head, which was as good a way to end this conversation as any. He stood and headed over to the wall with Hodge's name. He didn't usually talk to Hodge the same way he talked to Max, but he always stopped by and said hello.

Said good-bye.

Maybe one day it would help.

It wasn't that day yet.


	2. Chapter 2

Magnus felt a shiver of something at the edge of the Forest, his edge, _Alec's edge,_ something foreign, something unnatural. Something twisted and sharp and _wanting._ Whatever it was, it was well shielded and prepared, _just_ far enough in to avoid the Ward-Witch's attention on the Border. It was hard to find it, hard to track, and for a moment Magnus thought he was going to be too late.

But when he _stepped_ away and back out into the Forest he saw a trio of arrows still vibrating in the trunk of a tree, and the _thing_ he'd been chasing was gone. No. Magnus squinted, looked at the way the magic curled through the air, the heavy slick ooze of a shine that didn't belong. A demon's trail; it was fading already, but it would be a long time before it was completely gone. Evil always lingered. 

Magnus turned away from the lingering magic towards the mundane trail through the trees, and saw Alec. His whole body burned with relief, but that track still hung in the air, a path for the demon to follow back. The demon wasn't gone, not for long. Magnus stood in the shadows to watch, to wait. To guard. 

Alec knelt on the path, talking to a small girl with dark skin and pigtails, grass stains just barely visible at about knee height on her skirt. She was much too young to be wandering alone through the Forest, even here at the edges where it was almost normal. Magnus wasn't sure how he knew the girl had been alone, but there had been something in that shiver, hungry and cruel, and it seemed clear that the demon had scented her.

It was equally clear that Magnus would have been too late, if not for Alec, and he was so furious his fingers almost sparked. He wanted to burn that trail 'til the very air caught fire, until the demon flared up in pain. The Forest had its dangers, its monsters, but _children were off limits._

Everything in the shadows knew that. It was difficult to hold onto his temper, to wait and make sure he knew what was wrong before he acted, to wait and make sure no more innocents were anywhere near. It was difficult not to rush to Alec's side, to make sure he was unharmed. But that might scare the child again. 

Magnus usually scared humans. Most adults half-deserved it if they were far enough into the Forest to see Magnus' true eyes, chasing some rumor of magic out of greed or envy or desire, but this young girl did not. Instead of stepping forward, Magnus made himself step _back._ He settled deeper into the Forest's magic, let it tell him what it could see, what it could feel, let it show him the lives it could taste dashing between its leaves. He _pushed,_ felt the life around him start to scatter, everything from squirrels and sparrows to a naiad in a twisty stream and a redcap burrowed under the roots of a half-dead elm. He felt them go, out and further out, away from what was coming. 

Away from what Magnus was going to do.

"How did you get here, Madzie?" Alec's voice sounded even lovelier than it had before, soft and gentle for the child's sake, which was entirely irrelevant at the moment but Magnus couldn't stop himself from thinking it. "You're not supposed to wander off alone."

"I was going to pick flowers for Grandma." Madzie whispered and stared down at Alec's shoes. Magnus' jaw ached with how hard he was gritting his teeth. She was still afraid, the tremble visible in her shoulders, even as Alec pulled her close and hugged her tight. 

"Not by yourself, sweetheart." Alec pushed back, waited for her to lift her head and meet his eyes. He smiled at her, bright and open, and Magnus forgot how to breathe. Madzie stopped trembling and smiled back, small and shy. Magnus agreed entirely with the way her eyes lit up; he felt someone would have to be dead not to be comforted by that smile. "Ask me or Miss Cat if you want to surprise your Grandma. We'll always be happy to help."

Magnus' breath caught. Who _was_ Alec _,_ that he could speak so easily of the Ward-Witch, that he felt safe speaking _for_ her? Not that he was wrong. Catarina was wonderful with children, and knew every blade of grass and possible blossom along her Border. It was unusual for a human to know that, to not be so afraid of what she was that they never cared _who_ she was as well.

Madzie wouldn't look at Alec anymore, her teeth just visible pressed against her lip, but she nodded without saying anything else. Alec frowned, and Magnus could see the desire to ask more questions cross his face. He shook his head and stood; he'd decided that getting young Madzie out of the Forest was more important.

Magnus nodded in agreement, wished he could hurry them along. He could feel the hunger moving faster between _there_ and _here._ Magnus knew he could deal with it, but Alec couldn't know that there was something in the shadows on their side. 

Alec looked out past the the trail, looked right at Magnus through his lashes with the barest implication of a nod.

_Oh._

Alec tooke Madzie's hand, moved only a few steps before the girl shook her head. Alec stopped, but he didn't kneel this time, and he glanced all the way around them before he looked down at her. 

_He can feel it, too._

Magnus was numb from the strangeness of it all, though he wasn't sure why. It wasn't _quite_ a surprise to see how close Alec was to the Forest, not after the way he'd been walking the paths, the way he'd known where it was safe to forage, where it wasn't even safe to sit without a ward, the way he'd spoken for Catarina, the way he'd looked at Magnus. But Magnus didn't know what it _meant,_ how or why it was possible.

Now was not the time to figure it out, not with the demon coming back. Now was the time to be grateful it brought Alec here, to the right place and time, even before Magnus. Now was the time to watch their backs until Madzie was safe.

Magnus couldn't see Madzie's face or her voice, but he saw Alec's reaction. Alec frowned, a flash of something that looked like anger in his eyes. The girl's chin dropped immediately, her shoulders curving to make her already small form even smaller. Magnus' throat burned. There were few reasons a young child would recognize such a small sign of temper, would react that quickly. None of them were good. 

"How about we go to Miss Cat's?" Alec's eyes widened, frown and temper pushed down inside him so Madzie won't see them, his voice smooth and warm. 

Madzie lifted her face, not enough to look at him directly, but enough to glance in his direction, to see enough of his face to judge the truth of his words, his tone of voice. The curl of her shoulders eased into something that meant _yes_. 

Alec nodded. "I'm not mad at you, do you believe me?"

She didn't move, considered it instead. That was another thing a child shouldn't know, how to weigh her options before responding. The heat in Magnus' throat spread further, his chest burned with how difficult it was to hold it in. Alec's fingers tightened at his side, held carefully out of Madzie's view. 

They neither of them had time to be angry. The hunger wasn't here yet, but it was getting closer. 

When she nodded, Alec dropped down beside her. This time he nudged her closer until she climbed onto his back. He stood, hitched her up closer to his shoulders until her legs were out of the way of his hip quiver. _He's keeping his hands free,_ Magnus realized. Alec turned his head to say something. Madzie tucked her head against his shoulder, pressed her knees tight against his sides, curled her hands into the shoulders of his coat. 

Only when she was settled did he move, leaning forward to help her balance. His long legs stretched out as his pace increased, much faster than Madzie could have managed, and his focus was sharp as he glanced around them with each step. His fingers curled loosely around his bow, and he sped up into a steady trot. It looked like he could keep it up for _hours,_ and he was covering ground faster than Magnus expected. 

Magnus _stepped_ around them, checked the path all the way to Catarina's house. He turned back, and stopped. There was something about Alec's eyes, almost the same color as the shadows beneath the leaves, deep and brown and green, and Magnus' heart ached again. 

_Who are you?_

They made it. 

Alec made it to Catarina's house, and Magnus sighed in relief as the door opened on Catarina's familiar silhouette. Alec helped Madzie down, ushered her inside. He looked back, right toward Magnus, and mouthed a _thank you_ before he slipped inside after her. 

They were safe.

The hungry thing was angrier now. It recognized that it had lost. It howled and surged forward into the _here,_ rushing toward the house. Magnus didn't let it get that close. No one else was left, _pushed_ out past the reach of his spell. Magnus could feel the line of Catarina's wards, wards he could pass however he needed, and beyond them he called his fire, _balefire,_ fire that only burned through flesh, even demonic flesh that shrugged off most mortal weapons.

Magnus filled the shadows between the trees with balefire until the demon screamed.

Magnus put the fire out before the demon died. He _stepped_ to its side, and kneeled, and _looked_.

There was a construct, an ugly collection of sticks forming a vaguely humanoid shape, a lingering shine of magic swirling around it. It looked like a carrier, perhaps a way to hide the demon until it was ready? The shape of the vines in the center of the limbs hinted at some sort of cage, an empty space that used to hold... a warded jar? There were a few shards of glass still caught in the leaves. That was quite clever, really. It wasn't that difficult to summon a demon into a trapped container if you knew what you were doing. It could get past the border that way, could avoid the Ward-Witches if it wasn't a demon when it crossed. Once they were in the Forest, whoever built it only had to break the glass. 

Magnus _pushed_ on what was left of the demon until the ground swallowed it down deep beneath the Roots. There was one final scream, silent but echoing in Magnus' ears nonetheless as the demon was devoured, its life feeding the Forest. Magnus _looked_ between the sticks and leaves, the shards of glass, focused until he found the fine dark threads of foreign magic. He gathered them up, wound them together, and slipped them in his pocket. He could track it now, work his way out from this construct through the Forest... but whoever it was had to carry their construct past a Border, probably the nearest one, which meant Catarina might recognize them, might be able to narrow the search, give him a direction in which to start. 

The fact that Alec might still be there was just a nice bonus.

* * *

Cat took Madzie up to the loft to tuck her into bed; probably Cat's bed. Not that Alec had ever been in Cat's loft, but he doubted there was room for much else, considering how steep the angles of her roof were from the outside.

Then again, she was a mage of some sort. Maybe her house didn't look like he thought it looked. Maybe she didn't have to follow the shape of it, even if the frame of the house was real rather than illusion. Could things be bigger on the inside than the outside? Or could her house actually be somewhere _else_ so she had a place for extra blankets, and the front door was really a door between places? Or perhaps it was half-real, half-here, a single portal hidden at the top of the ladder she took upstairs?

Alec shook his head. He stared at a bottle of rum in the pantry for awhile, but eventually sat at her table and sipped his now lukewarm tea. He wondered how much tea he'd had over the years, sitting at this table. He wondered how much tea Cat had made over the years; she'd been living in this house for longer than Alec's grandparents had been able to remember, and she never aged a day.

He took another sip. No wonder she knew how to make such good tea. She'd had a lot of practice.

There was an itch between Alec's shoulder-blades, deep enough under the skin it almost ached. He wasn't sure what it meant, but he thought it was because of Magnus.

Because of whatever he was doing to stop the _thing_ Alec saw earlier, the thing that didn't move right. _It_ had been an unpleasant shade of black, had too many joints in too many places, had moved _wrong._ Even the pace of its gait was just far enough from natural to make Alec shudder. Alec had shot at it, but his arrows had gone _through_ it. It hadn't liked that, had disliked it so much it had disappeared, but Alec had no illusions about what he'd accomplished. He hadn't caused it any permanent damage. There'd been no blood of any sort, no sound of flesh giving beneath the impact of his arrow.

Not that Alec _liked_ that sound, but the absence had been apparent.

The itch under his skin flared up into heat, hot enough to scald his spine, then twisted into a knot as the temperature faded. The tension grew tighter, moved deeper inside until his fingers clenched and his eyes closed with the effort of riding it out. It gave as suddenly as it had begun, and he slumped down into his chair with a sigh of relief. The woods were fickle and dangerous, but that _thing_ didn't belong there. 

It reminded him of the stories about the day Max and Hodge...

It wasn't quite a match, but it wouldn't be a surprise if both _things_ were the same sort of wrong. He'd ask Cat when she got downstairs. She was the one who'd managed to banish the last one. She occasionally started to apologize for not being able to do more; he usually managed to catch her before she got too far. He knew it wasn't her fault. She guarded the border of the forest. She wouldn't be as powerful if she lived anywhere else; she wasn't as powerful against something that shouldn't be there, something that wasn't part of the woods.

He knew it wasn't his fault either, but he didn't think that helped either of them. 

The latch on the door clicked. He could feel the impulse down his spine, the usual response. He should be on his feet, should get his weapon ready, should prepare, just in case.

He didn't. He stayed. He sat, and looked up at Magnus as the door swung wide enough to let him in. Magnus was backlit by the late afternoon sun, his silhouette gilded in a rich gold almost as beautiful as his eyes. It was warm but not bright enough to hide his face, and when he saw Alec he smiled.

Alec smiled back. There was a lift of heat in his chest, and his back straightened, and he stopped worrying. It was impossible to keep brooding about things in shadows when there was such lovely sunlight lighting up the view in front of him. Magnus stepped forward and closed the door. Alec blinked as the light faded, and he couldn't stop smiling. Magnus was just... _beautiful._ Alec didn't have the right words for how beautiful, not even in his thoughts.

Apparently it was Magnus that made everything better, not the sunlight at all. That might cause trouble later, but for now it was enough to see Magnus still smiling too.

There was a slick clatter of someone half sliding, half climbing down the ladder, and an audible huff of breath as Cat reached the main room. "Well."

Magnus aimed a smile at her, and Alec swallowed a twist of entirely unreasonable regret at the loss of Magnus' eyes looking back at him. "Hello, darling."

Cat snorted. "Here I thought I'd have to interrupt some ridiculous stand-off, considering how the afternoon went." 

Alec shrugged and made himself look away from Magnus long enough to glance at Cat. 

"You're usually much more suspicious." She raised her eyebrows at Alec, and he shrugged again, twisted his mouth in a silent _what can you do?_

Magnus was much too pretty for Alec to be suspicious of him.Which he knew was a lie even as he thought it; Alec was usually suspicious of pretty. The woods were fond of pretty traps, and Alec was good at avoiding them. 

Alec was entirely incapable of being suspicious of Magnus.

Cat hummed, clearly reaching her own conclusions, and gestured Magnus toward the table. "Tea?"

"Thank you." Magnus slid gracefully into the chair across from Alec with a _wink_ , and Alec almost choked on his tea.

Magnus' expression settled into something still and serious as he propped his chin on the heel of his hand. "How are you doing? Demon attacks are no small matter."

"Demon?" Alec coughed and put his mug down. Drinking was clearly a lost cause. "That was a _demon_?"

"Mm-hmm." Magnus answered as he stared at Alec. "I'm quite impressed you managed to scare it away, they're usually not bothered by mundane weapons. Speaking of!"

Magnus sat up very straight, and reached into his jacket, and pulled out Alec's arrows. 

Alec blinked as Magnus put them onto the middle of the table. They were much too long to have fit in such a well-tailored coat, especially not with the way Magnus had been moving, the way he'd leaned towards Cat when he spoke, the curve of his back as he'd sat down. "How?"

"Magic." Magnus' voice dropped, a low soft drawl as he drew the word out, and Alec felt an undignified urge to whimper. He was also afraid he might be blushing. 

"Thank you." Alec hoped his voice sounded normal in response. He didn't have magical arrow-carrying pockets, however, so he left the arrows where they were.

Cat clicked her tongue as she joined them. She passed a mug to Magnus, set her own down in front of her as she leaned in to look at the arrows. "Did you just put something that went through a demon on my kitchen table? _Three_ somethings? It's going to take forever to get ichor residue out of the wood."

"I cleaned them first!" Magnus leaned back, a hand to his heart as if he'd been mortally offended. 

Alec snickered. 

Cat's eyes seemed narrow as she glanced back and forth between them, but then she settled into her chair and drank her tea. "Is the demon taken care of, then?"

"Yes." Alec answered even before Magnus did, and his fingers slid along the edge of the table as they both stared at him. "I have no idea why I said that, sorry."

"You're right, though." Magnus tilted his head. "Any idea how you knew?"

Alec stopped mid-head-shake as he realized he _did_ actually have some idea. He wasn't quite sure how to explain _my shoulders told me_ with words. "Did you use fire to kill it?"

"Balefire, but close enough." Magnus moved forward in his chair, elbow sliding across the table, all of him just a little bit closer to Alec. "Aren't you _fascinating._ "

Alec's breath caught in his throat as he tried to deny it, _I'm nothing special,_ but he couldn't quite manage words with Magnus' attention focused on him like that. 

"The Forest likes him." Cat interrupted their staring contest, voice dry and steady. "The Forest isn't the only one."

Magnus ducked his head, and was suddenly all the way back in his chair. Alec missed the warmth of Magnus' eyes. 

"I meant me." Cat snorted as Alec and Magnus both shifted in their chairs to look at her directly. "You're adorable idiots, aren't you? When did that happen?"

"It hasn't." Magnus' voice was quiet, but Alec caught the edge of something pleased and hopeful in the curl of his lips, a spark of amusement as he glanced sideways at Alec. "Yet."

Alec was definitely blushing this time, he could feel the heat of it across his cheeks and down the back of his neck, and he bit his lip to stop himself from stuttering something ridiculous. 

Cat laughed, low and warm and easy. "Good luck, then."

"Thank you, but I make my own luck, my dear." Magnus' voice lifted up, louder and brighter, and Alec almost snickered again. "Business first though."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something that _wasn't_ a small skein of black thread, even though it looked like one. Alec's chair scraped across the floor as he pushed himself away from it, and he grunted with disgust. "Can you balefire that, too?"

"I could burn it, yes." Magnus frowned down at the thread, glanced over at Alec and back down again. "But it's the only thing I have to try and find the person who snuck a demon into the Forest. I can track the magic like a bloodhound would a scent."

Alec grunted again. That was a good reason not to balefire it. He still felt queasy looking at it though, and pushed himself a bit further away. 

Magnus turned his frown to Alec now, which was much less fun than his smiles had been. "Why do you keep doing that?" 

"Because it's wrong." Alec lifted his hands as if he could push it away. "Why don't you two want to get away from it?"

"Because it's just magic, to me. Us?" Magnus glanced at Cat, who nodded. "Everyone's magic is a little different, and I was hoping Cat might recognize it as someone who crossed her Border."

"May I?" Cat started to reach out with her hand as if she was going to touch the thing, and Alec was around the table with his hand around her wrist before he'd even thought about it. 

Magnus and Cat were so startled they just blinked at him.

"Not with bare skin," Alec managed, his voice rough as he forced it past the nausea building in his throat from being this much closer to it. Cat didn't fight his grip, and he made himself let go. Alec sighed with relief as her hand fell back into her lap. 

"Why?" Magnus asked. He shifted his arm to the side, moving the thing so it was as far away from everyone as possible without dropping it. "How glad should I be that I'm wearing gloves today?"

"I don't know, but I know we can't, we shouldn't." Alec shook his head. "The same way I know you burned the demon, but didn't kill it before the forest ate it."

Cat made an odd distressed noise in the back of her throat. She looked at the not-thread and pushed herself further back. "That's remarkably precise."

"It is." Magnus looked at Alec for a few more moments before he nodded and turned back to Cat. "Do you have something I can put this in?"

She nodded, and slipped out of the room into her pantry. She came back with a small jar with white lines criss-crossing it inside the glass, a star carved into the cork plug. It felt... soothing? Like one of the quilts folded in the chest under Cat's front window.

Today was a really weird day.

Cat opened the jar, and Magnus carefully slid the thing inside, and Cat pushed the cork back in as far as it would go.

Alec fell more than sat, his legs sprawled across the floor as he shuddered. "That's much better."

"Hmm." Magnus stared at the jar, then Alec, then back to the jar. He looked at Cat, and they seemed to have some sort of silent conversation. Cat sighed, and placed the jar very carefully on the table, and then sat on the floor next to Alec. Magnus flopped down onto the floor as well, and offered Alec an unusually tentative look. "Do you know what I am?"

Alec shrugged. He didn't like that 'what', Magnus was clearly a _person_ , not a thing. He also wasn't human, but Alec knew lots of humans who were assholes so that didn't mean much. "Pretty?"

Cat giggled, and Magnus' eyes widened, something soft and startled in his expression. It made Alec's chest ache, that Magnus should be so _surprised_ by something as simple as an awkward compliment. 

"Sorry. I mean, it's true, I'm not sorry, but that's not what you meant, I mean..." Alec groaned and leaned forward, his back curling as he tucked himself down, covering his face with his hands. "Today has been very strange."

"A little bit, yes." Magnus agreed, his voice so very soft. "The Forest claimed me a long time ago, changed me to be a part of it, to help keep it where it's supposed to be, _what_ it's supposed to be. I guess you'd call me one of its Guardians."

"I'm a Ward-Witch." Alec let his hands fall as Cat started speaking, though he was still more looking at his knees than either of them. "I make sure the Forest's anchor to this world is stable, and I can usually tell when anything crosses the Border." Her voice cracked, and when she continued she spoke slowly, a careful framework of words to hold in her regret. "Sometimes I can lock someone out, or something in."

Alec lifted his head at that, and offered her something as close to a smile as he could manage. "It's not your fault you couldn't stop the last one."

She nodded back, but not like she agreed. 

"Oh." Magnus sounded strange, his voice stripped bare of the usual layers that wrapped around his words. "That's what... If it helps, that one's dead now, too?"

Alec couldn't breathe, couldn't follow through that thought to the fact that Magnus knew about it, that Magnus had killed it, that all this time Alec had been waiting for a chance that would never come. He hadn't even realized that was what he was doing, until now that he knew he'd never... 

Magnus' whisper stopped Alec's spiralling thoughts. "I'm sorry I was too late." 

Alec inhaled, forced himself to focus. Magnus looked stricken, grief and guilt clear in the depth of his eyes, in the way his hands twisted together in his lap. Grief for people he'd never known, guilt that he hadn't saved them despite that. 

Alec swallowed. "Thank you."

Magnus startled, as if that was the very last thing he'd thought could happen, someone thanking him for killing a demon. Alec was annoyed with everyone Magnus had ever helped before. Magnus opened his mouth, but didn't actually say anything. 

"It wasn't your fault either." Cat reached over and patted Magnus' shoulder. "We can't save everyone."

Magnus rolled his eyes at her. 

"Yes, I know, I'm terrible at listening to my own words of wisdom, but I'm trying."

Alec felt his smile widen into something a bit less tense. 

Magnus blew out a breath, hard enough his lips pursed and his cheeks filled with the force of it. "Well. Now. Where were we?" 

"You know what we are." Cat nodded at Alec. "Do you know what you are?"

Alec squeaked, too surprised to manage talking. 

Magnus grinned, and then ducked his head with a cough. It was so obviously an attempt not to laugh that he should have just let the laugh happen. "I think that's a no."

Alec pressed his lips together. 

"Or maybe not?" Cat asked.

Alec didn't _know,_ or he hadn't. He knew the _story,_ but it was his grandparents' story, not one he'd ever claimed as his. Izzy had never claimed it either, and it certainly hadn't helped Max. 

But he could _feel_ demons, and walk the woods. He glanced up at the jar on the table. _It almost got Madzie._ But if admitting it, if _being_ it helped stop that from happening again to someone else? 

"My grandparents used to tell us bedtime stories about Nephilim, half-angel warriors. With our last name."

Cat and Magnus made almost the exact same startled noise. Alec snorted.

"That would explain a few things..." Cat's voice trailed off. "But Isabelle never showed any affinity for the Forest or magic."

Alec felt the pride warm his chest, his throat, ease the last remnants of confusion. "She's about to be the youngest Master the Armorer's Guild has ever had. By about ten years."

"Isabelle?" Magnus asked over Cat's soft whistle.

"My sister. The rest of my family, besides Max." Alec stopped, gestured in the vague direction of the memorial wall. "My brother and sister and mother, they all moved to Alicante."

"But you didn't go with them."

Alec shook his head. "I don't fit there." _I didn't know what I was doing here, either. Until I met you._ He almost said that out loud, almost reached out to grab Magnus' hand, almost did... something ridiculous and embarrassing. He rolled his shoulders instead, trying to ease the memory of tension between his shoulder-blades.

"Nephilim, hmm." Magnus snapped his fingers. "That's it!"

He scrambled to his feet, and grabbed the jar. He waved a hand at Cat even before she'd said anything. "I know what to look for now, I think, just a moment."

Magnus' eyes got brighter and brighter, 'til the golden light danced across the jar. Alec kept having to stop himself from holding his breath as he waited. Magnus jerked, and the golden light disappeared, and he very _very_ carefully put the jar back on the table.

"Well, that's nasty."

"So we're very glad for your gloves, then." Cat's hands were clenching and unclenching in her lap. Alec reached out and settled his palm on top of one of them, waited until she exhaled, long and slow, waited until her fingers stop twitching before he took his hand back. 

"Yes, indeed." Magnus spun a graceful half-circle on his heel, which was a phrase Alec had heard all his life but he didn't think he'd ever actually _seen._ Most people turned on the ball of their foot, occasionally their toes, but Magnus just _leaned_ and his balance shifted around and it was gorgeous.

Alec had it bad; he was analyzing how Magnus turned around.

"Angel blood—" Magnus pointed at Alec, "—is especially sensitive to _fallen_ angels, to corruption of their own."

"A fallen angel sent a demon into the woods." Alec's voice lifted near the end of his sentence, but it was horror he couldn't quite contain, not a question at all.

"And set a trap on its power, so it would tie itself to anyone that touched it." Magnus' shudder was almost delicate, but no less eloquent of his disgust. "Literally and figuratively, the magic would just wrap around you, tighter and tighter, and use your magic, your own life force to strangle you."

Cat made a faint gagging sound, and Alec felt light-headed enough he was glad to be sitting down.

"Thank you, Alec." Magnus leaned down and brushed his lips against Alec's cheek in a soft kiss, straightening up before Alec could respond with something more than one startled inhale. "If you hadn't been here we both probably would have died, because I would have gotten stuck in the trap too when I tried to save Cat. It's a very thorough trap, it has at least five different triggers, all very carefully hidden under a layer of wild magic so I, or someone like me, would be less likely to see it."

Alec nodded, and held desperately to some semblance of self-control to stop himself from lifting his hand to feel the spot on his cheek where Magnus had kissed him. "There's someone else like you?"

"Of course not." Cat sounded half proud of Magnus, half amused by the disbelief in Alec's voice. "But the Forest does have a few other Guardians, and most Ward-Witches can work some wild magic."

Alec frowned. "It's designed to catch Guardians or Witches." 

"Apparently." Magnus wiggled his fingers at Alec. "But it didn't think we'd have _you._ " 

"That's a little too close for comfort," Alec muttered, but the other two ignored him. Probably because there wasn't really anything to say to that. _Yes it was, but?_ They couldn't very well ignore the problem. 

"It may not be safe to track the magical signature." Cat held her hand up, and Magnus helped her pull herself to her feet. "There might be threads of active magic along it."

"True." Magnus hummed, and flicked a quick exaggerated smile in Alec's direction. "How do you feel about joining me on a hunt, angel?"

Alec smiled back, thought it felt more like he was baring his teeth than anything like amusement. "Sounds delightful."

"For old-fashioned tracking, you'll need light," Cat said.

Magnus' wrist curved, echoing his nod of agreement. 

"Who wants dinner?" Cat asked. "Then Alec can go get some sleep at home, pack his bag, and you can meet back here at dawn."

"You've got Madzie?" Alec asked. 

"Of course." Cat's glare edged her voice; he'd almost offended. "And your family, if anyone stops by to say hello while you're gone."

"Thank you." Alec pushed himself back up onto his feet, and pulled her into a hug. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

"Starve," she answered tartly as he let go. "Now go wash up and set the table, you know where everything is."


	3. Chapter 3

It was barely false dawn when Magnus found himself at Cat's doorstep again. He was maybe a little early. He was also, he could admit to himself, impatient to see Alec again. Which was patently ridiculous, it had only been a few hours since they'd said goodnight. Yet here he was with an ache in his chest and a fluttery feeling in his stomach.

And there Alec was, _also early,_ stepping into the clearing. It was almost _obscene_ , the way he somehow looked even better than Magnus had remembered. He always looked even better than Magnus had remembered. Once was nothing, twice was coincidence, three times was a pattern. Magnus might not survive this pattern continuing. 

Especially as this morning it had much to do with a smothered yawn and heavy-lidded eyes, making the connection of Alec with _bed_ an impossible one to avoid. 

"Not a morning person?" Magnus somehow kept his voice bright and easy, as if he wasn't suppressing any and all inclinations to pounce. Alec looked at Magnus through half-closed eyes, a hint of a smile just starting to show around his mouth, and Magnus had to squash his instincts a second time. 

"Had a little trouble getting to sleep, after." Alec aimed his chin at Catarina's door. His voice was low and rough, quiet with respect for the time of day, and Magnus almost had to clench his hands at his sides to stop himself from reaching out for him. 

"But I'll be fine once we get moving." Alec's words sped up, his voice steadying, as if he'd taken Magnus' silence as some sort of doubt about their plan and wanted to reassure him. "Just been awhile since laps at dawn, you know?"

Magnus answered that one with a hum and lifted eyebrows.

Alec mouthed an ' _oh_ ' before shrugging. "In the Army we usually exercised first thing in the morning. Some sparring, an awful lot of running in circles, that sort of thing."

"A soldier, were we?" Magnus asked. There was a shadow in Alec's eyes, and it was obvious they were glancing up against something serious. It was too early for serious. Literally, this morning, and more metaphorically in terms of their sudden intense acquaintance. He'd known the man for about a _day._ Magnus pulled out a smirk. "Bet you looked delicious in your uniform."

Alec blushed and ducked his head and shook his hands out and generally looked entirely uncertain of what to do with himself. But he was smiling, and Magnus felt inordinately pleased by that. 

Cat came out only a little while later, gave Alec a wrapped up package of food, reminded Magnus that Alec needed to eat regularly, and kissed them both on the cheek. 

"Well?" She made a _shoo_ gesture with her hands. "Get on with it, then."

"Thank you, Cat." Alec smiled at her, and waited for Magnus to lead them to the construct. They'd look for the trail from there.

Magnus asked the Forest to show him the path the construct had taken, see what the trees and the animals remembered. It was always a little vague and dreamy, these sorts of thoughts, but it had been remarkable enough, recent enough, that he got a pretty clear direction.

Alec just stared at the ground for a minute and started walking in the same direction Magnus had been about to take.

"So what exactly are you tracking?" Magnus asked once he caught up. "The construct's path? The fallen angel magic? The demon itself?"

Alec shrugged. "Bit of all three, I think. Some spots make me queasy, so that's the magic. Sometimes the air feels too warm?" He lifted his hands and waved them back and forth, as if he wasn't quite sure of his description but couldn't manage something better. "That's the demon. And there are some physical signs, here and there." That time he nodded at a broken branch, and then at a scrape through soft dirt.

Magnus whistled softly, and grinned when Alec tilted his head back to look at him. "What an excellent travelling companion you are."

Alec scoffed out a breath, but he looked pleased again. "So are you."

"Thank you."

Magnus resisted the urge to skip or whistle some more, and let Alec take the lead through the Forest. It was easier for Magnus to keep an eye on anything _else_ that might be going through the Forest if he let Alec focus on the tracking... and he had to admit that following Alec granted Magnus a very nice view.

_I have a terribly shallow soul._

Only he knew that wasn't the only reason he liked Alec, however much he was trying to pretend otherwise. He pretended quite successfully for half the morning, until he saw a rumbling swirl in the Forest's magic heading in their direction. "Wait."

Alec stopped immediately, no questions, no hesitation. He leaned back, as if wanting to be closer, and spared a quick glance in Magnus' direction. Magnus lifted a finger to his lips, _shhh_. Alec nodded, and looked completely relaxed as he turned and looked out at the Forest again. 

Magnus found the _nothing to see here_ spell easier to cast than usual; it spun around them and settled, warm and welcoming, as if the Forest itself wanted to keep them together. That was ridiculous. If it wasn't for the fact that he had to pay attention to his magic Magnus would have shut his eyes and groaned aloud at his wayward thoughts. 

Alec stiffened as the disturbance approached, but he didn't try and move, didn't say a word. Not even when it came into sight, the distinctive sloped back and shoulders of a forest troll trudging slowly and steadily past them. His knuckles looked white with tension, gripping his bow too tightly, but that was the only sign of distress he let free. 

Magnus waited until he couldn't feel the troll at all, and swirled the magic from the spell back into the Forest. Alec exhaled, long and slow and loud in comparison to the silence around them. He started forward again, but his hands were still too tight, and Magnus skipped forward a step until he was walking next to Alec instead of following. 

"Magnus," Alec started, and then pressed his lips together. He tilted his head, a hint of a frown on his face. Magnus kept walking, kept scanning the Forest around them. He waited while Alec searched for the words. "You can kill demons."

Magnus nodded. 

"Trolls are mortal."

Magnus nodded again. He had a feeling he knew where this was going, and he wasn't entirely sure how he was going to answer, once Alec finally made his way to his questions.

"That should make them easier to kill than demons."

"I suppose it might." Magnus felt a bitter tinge in the back of his throat, stared down at his toes, watched each step he took. It always came to this, to what a good _weapon_ Magnus was, to how easy it was for his power to kill.

Alec's voice sounded odd, slow and cautious. "If it had seen us it would have tried to kill us."

"But it didn't see us." Magnus glanced sideways, his steps slowing.

Alec nodded, acknowledging the point more than agreeing, if Magnus was interpreting the expression on his face correctly. "Could it have killed you?"

Magnus blinked. That wasn't what he'd expected. He'd expected Alec to want him to kill the troll, not worry about the troll killing Magnus. "Theoretically."

Alec stopped walking and glared. He was quite good at glaring. "How about in practice?"

Magnus stopped too, angled his body so they were mostly facing each other. Alec lifted his eyebrows. Magnus considered pointing out that it would be much easier for the troll to kill _Alec,_ both in theory and in practice. That didn't seem to concern Alec in the slightest.

"I don't age," Magnus said. Alec's expression didn't ease. Magnus made himself keep talking. "I can't die outside the Forest. If I get killed, the Forest brings me back here."

Alec made an unpleasant little hum in the back of his throat, as if he hadn't liked that description. "If you're already inside the forest?"

Magnus looked down at his hands, twisted the heavy, plain band on his thumb around. "You noticed that."

"I did." Magnus looked back up, but Alec held a hand up before Magnus could answer. "You don't have to tell me. But if we do have to deal with a troll, or something worse, it's easier to fight if I know what's dangerous for you and what isn't."

"I can be killed, if that's what you're asking." Magnus swallowed. He didn't usually tell people that, but Alec looked so serious, so concerned. "But I am powerful enough that it's unlikely anything that belongs in the Forest could kill me."

Alec closed his eyes and sighed. "We're hunting things that _don't_ belong in these woods."

"Well." There was that. "I'll try not to die, then."

Alec lifted a hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. Apparently he didn't think Magnus was funny. "Why doesn't the 'Forest' do its thing if you die here?" He opened his eyes and jerked his hand down. "And how do you _know_?"

"One of the other Guardians explained it." _I'll introduce you if you like._ Magnus coughed. That was an impractical thought. It was like some part of him expected Alec to still be here after they'd taken care of the fallen angel, felt as if this odd partnership was going to _last._ Alec had a home to go back to, Magnus had to remember that. "As a Guardian I'm part of the Forest, and the Forest is very much alive, and connected to almost everywhere, so if I die out in a world, it just... brings its living energy back."

"But if you die here?" Alec asked, his hand sliding up and down the leather strap that crossed his chest. 

"Everything dies. That's part of life too." _It brought me back once. No one gets brought back twice._ "The Forest still has its energy, keeps its magic, just in a different form." 

Alec made that same small noise in his throat. But then he shook his head, and his fingers clenched around leather and bow. "Is that why you didn't kill the troll? Just in case it got a lucky shot in?"

Magnus stepped back and frowned. "The troll is a natural part of the Forest. It's just being a troll, why should I kill it for that?"

Alec's hands relaxed, all the tension gone from his shoulders and his jaw. "We shouldn't."

Magnus blinked. That _really_ hadn't been where he thought this conversation was going to go. Alec was a constant surprise. "I don't have any particular desire to be killed by one though, promise."

"Good." Alec had such beautiful eyes, rich and dark, and Magnus could have stared at them for hours, hoping to figure out what they were trying to tell him. But Alec turned away and started walking before Magnus could manage any part of it.

Magnus followed.

They kept up a steady pace, stopping only for lunch, and it was still early afternoon when the trail let them to a Border, and Alec came to a stop.

"The trail goes there." Alec pointed at the edge of the Forest. "That's an edge for someone else's world, not mine?"

"Indeed." Magnus leaned closer and focused. It wasn't a world he'd had much cause to visit. He wasn't even entirely sure of the Ward-Witch's name. Elijah? Elias? E-something. 

Alec let out a breath, and squared his shoulders, and Magnus barely managed to get his arm in front of him before he stepped across. 

"What?" Alec looked at Magnus. "This might be where it came from."

"It might. Or it might have just skated along behind the Wards in an attempt to send us off track. The metaphysical version of walking upstream. But that isn't my point. We have to make sure it's safe for you to cross."

Alec frowned. "Is any part of this safe?"

Magnus couldn't help a quick grin, because true, but then he shook his head. "If you go into a world where there's another _you_ , you'll end up inside them, and it's very difficult to remember where you came from, because their world's everywhere around you, enforcing its reality on you. You could get stuck, or lost entirely inside the other you."

Alec's face made a delightfully scrunched-up displeased expression as he attempted to follow that.

"I did not explain that well, did I?" Magnus turned around, tapping a finger against his lips as he looked for something he could use. "There!"

Alec followed as he walked over to a small hollow between some roots. Magnus _reached,_ and the Forest answered, and the hollow slowly filled with water. Magnus gestured grandly at the fancy puddle. "Kneel, and then touch the water. Carefully!" 

Alec's face looked like he wanted to roll his eyes, but he went down on his knees and glanced up at Magnus instead.

"You need to make contact, but you don't want to cause any ripples, or the spell will take longer."

"What spell?"

"It will show you what that world's version of you is doing, if he exists. If it doesn't show you anything, then there's no you in there to worry about."

Alec's eyes went a little out of focus as he processed that, and then he nodded, and leaned over, and very gently let his fingertips touch the water.

There was a moment of very intense silence, and then he jerked back hard enough he landed on his ass and slid back half a step. He also looked like he was... blushing?

"Are you all right?" Magnus couldn't decide if he was worried or amused, so he focused on keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

"Mm-hmm." Alec's lips were tightly pushed together, and his face was very definitely more pink than it had been a minute ago. "I'm definitely in that world."

Amusement was starting to win out. Magnus scuffed a foot through the trail Alec's heels had left in the dirt. "What were you doing, that inspired this?"

Alec made a very intriguing sort of noise, sharp and abrupt but from deep in his chest. "Having sex."

Magnus had to cover his mouth, though it didn't quite muffle the snicker. "Was it good sex, at least?"

"Very." Alec's face and voice were soft this time, almost wistful. 

Magnus felt the press of impending laughter fade, and wondered if Alec's expression implied _making love_ rather than just lust. 

Alec looked up at him, an angled glance that was too warm and tense to be shy, but too tentative to be anything else. "He was with you."

"Hmhhk." Magnus' voice caught in his throat, and something twisted in his chest. He wasn't sure if it was a new wound, or something trying to heal. Alec just looked at him, looked _through_ him, and Magnus didn't know what to say.

Alec's stare relaxed, and one side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. Magnus was still too breathless to speak. Alec waited another heartbeat, two, before he spoke. "Plan B?" 

"I'll go talk to the Ward-Witch, see if he recognizes the magic trail."

"But the, you know." Alec pointed at the slowly draining scrying pool. 

"Oh, I don't get stuck." Magnus waved his words away. Alec rolled his eyes. He really was delightfully unimpressed by things. "The Forest anchors me. Benefit of being a Guardian."

Alec grunted, and pushed himself up off the ground. "Guess I'll set up a place to wait, then."

"I can—" Magnus started, but Alec waved him off. 

"I need something to do while you're chatting." He glared when Magnus didn't start walking away. "Go on, I'm fine."

_Yes, you are,_ Magnus' thoughts helpfully added, but Magnus ignored them, and went through the Border.

* * *

Alec didn't make any sort of camp right away. In case Magnus' stream theory was right, he carefully worked his way along the Border for a bit, looking for anything that might help. He almost fell into a sinkhole when he found it, a sudden attack of nausea severe enough he had to put his hand against a tree to steady himself, had to close his eyes and think about breathing.

He opened his eyes carefully, and leaned forward enough to look into the hole. It was a bit too _even_ to be the sinkhole he'd first taken it for, and there was a darker shadow near the bottom, a tunnel. Apparently their trail was headed underground.

Alec sighed, and made his way back to where Magnus had left the woods. He cleared a patch of ground, made a very small fire pit and and an even smaller fire, and settled down to wait. He didn't have to wait long. 

Magnus had to clear his throat from the other side of Alec's ward to be let through, which was oddly gratifying. Nice to know he was good enough at this to keep a 'Guardian' out. 

"You were right about the stream idea," Alec said as soon as Magnus was standing beside him. He tilted his head in the direction of the sinkhole. "We're going to have to go underground."

Magnus frowned. "You went scouting by yourself?"

Alec shrugged. It was that or reach out a hand to smooth the crease between Magnus' brows, and that seemed a little too forward.

Magnus managed to shrug back sarcastically, clearly not pleased. 

"I didn't follow it by myself." Alec refrained from rolling his eyes again. It was touch and go for a moment though. "Shall we?"

Magnus glared at him, but clearly couldn't come up with a dissenting argument.

"Well then." Alec brushed his hands together, and started gathering up the anchors for his wards. Magnus snapped his fingers, and the fire and fire pit both disappeared. When Alec walked by after he'd picked up his last arrow shaft, the ground was cool. He looked at Magnus, hoping he looked as unimpressed as possible, in direct contrast to the giddy delight Magnus' magic inspired. That seemed like a slightly embarrassing admission, this early in their acquaintance.

Friendship. Courtship? Whatever this was. _Show-off,_ he mouthed at Magnus, trying to distract himself from his own thoughts _._

Magnus looked like he wanted to stick his tongue out, and then the gold in his eyes darkened, and his attention flicked down, and up. Alec's skin felt too hot for the rest of him, and he wasn't entirely sure he was still breathing. 

_Magnus' body pressed to his, smooth hot skin and whispered words, ragged breaths and fingers tightening, the curve of his hips, faster, chasing relief as the pressure built, and built, groaning Magnus' name..._

Alec closed his eyes and swallowed. He'd _felt_ it, how much that other him loved that other Magnus, how entirely he'd given himself into that feeling, into chasing perfection together. It felt like he'd found it before, expected to find it again, _knew_ he would find it again.

"Alec?" 

Alec opened his eyes. Magnus was standing much closer now, eyes wide and concerned as he looked into Alec's face, hand hovering as if he'd been just about to touch Alec's cheek.

"I really want to kiss you." Alec's voice almost croaked out of his throat, but he finished the sentence. 

Magnus' lips parted on a soft exhalation. Alec shook his head before Magnus could say anything. "But I can't tell how much of that is me wanting to kiss you, and how much of that is remembering how much _he_ loved kissing the other you."

Magnus' mouth closed. 

"I wanted to kiss you before that." Alec gestured towards where Magnus had made the scrying pool. "But now it's... I can still _remember_ but it's not... right. It's not _us_ but I can feel it, and I—" Alec had to close his eyes against a surge of heat, an intense urge to cry. He wasn't even sure why he was so upset.

He'd wanted their first kiss to be special, to mean something real, and now he had this other version in his head, and he couldn't get it out, he couldn't _breathe._

"Alec," Magnus' voice was soft, so soft Alec's heart hurt. His hands settled along Alec's jaw. "It will fade, I promise. You won't forget, but the other world's emotions, the intensity of it, it won't last."

Alec had to blink a few times before he could focus on Magnus' face, could clear the damp out of his lashes. He ought to feel ridiculous, a small voice in the back of his head seemed to want him to, but he didn't. He felt safe. "Thank you."

Magnus' thumbs stroked gently against Alec's cheeks, his eyes shifting as his focus moved across Alec's face. "I'm sorry I put you through that. I didn't think—it's not usually so intense. Usually you see yourself walking down a hallway or taking a nap or something."

Alec breathed out, tried to relax, tried to smile. "There have been a definite shortage of naps in my life. I think that might be true across worlds."

Magnus smiled, and there it was again, a hint of flirtation, something light and bright in his eyes. He was so damn _beautiful._ "Well, I may have to teach you how, once we've taken care of our little demon problem." 

"I look forward to it." Alec leaned forward into Magnus' touch, leaned until their foreheads bumped together. "You're important to me, Magnus. I'm not even entirely sure why, or how, but you are, and I don't want to mess this up."

"Oh." Magnus' voice broke, and his eyes shone as he looked at Alec's face. "I've known you two days, and I already know you're the most remarkable man I've ever met. I don't think there's a way you could mess this up."

"Is that a challenge?" Alec pursed his lips as he breathed out, almost a whistle. "I make excellent mistakes. I go all out."

Magnus grinned and stepped back, his hands slipping down by his sides. "So do I."

_Sounds like we're perfect for each other._

He couldn't say it, not yet, not when it still felt like something that other Alec would say to that other Magnus. Maybe tomorrow. "Shall we see how far we can get before nightfall?"

"Lead the way, angel."

* * *

Magnus hated being underground.

The Forest was still around, of course, but it was different. It was around him, but too much of it was above his head, the shift of its power almost muffled by the dirt and stone. It felt dim, slower and colder than it was when he was walking through it rather than under it. 

He was painfully glad to have Alec with him. He was such a lovely distraction. He didn't volunteer to start any conversations, but he was more than happy to go along with anything Magnus said. Well. Alec would say something sarcastic in response to Magnus complaining, but somehow they'd wandered their way through introductions of Alec's siblings, of the Ward-Witches Magnus knew, the beginnings of shared stories about hunting or foraging or _that one time at this tavern.._. It was occasionally pleasant for almost an entire five minutes. They were having a grand old time, really, traipsing through the dark, swatting at slimy bugs, dodging the endless spread of roots, avoiding landslides. At least they hadn't run into a redcap. Magnus was pretty sure this was where the one near the Border must have gone when he _pushed_ everything away from the demon. 

But it felt like a very small favor as he was trying not to breathe too much because it smelled terrible, the air dank with rot. 

"I am never wearing any of these clothes again," Magnus muttered the second time they stopped to eat after waking up in the tunnels. He could feel the Forest's sense of time passing, but trees didn't measure time the way people did. Magnus was pretty sure it hadn't even been a full day. "I will never get the smell out."

Alec's jaw shifted as if he was thinking, followed by a faint hint of a blush. Alec didn't blush unless Magnus was teasing. Had he somehow managed to tease himself inside his own head? That was delightful. Magnus wanted to know what he'd thought. What had Magnus just said? Something about...

_Never wearing clothes._

Oh. _Oh._ It was surprisingly warm underground all of a sudden. Magnus leaned in closer to Alec, admiring the line of his cheekbones, wondering if that blush had just been Magnus' wishful thinking. Trying very hard not to return the favor if it hadn't been, trying not to think too much about _Alec_ and _never wearing clothes_. 

Alec leaned back and away from Magnus, a soft grunt as he flapped a hand between them. "Stop that."

"What, looking?" Magnus lifted his chin to peer across his nose at Alec. "You're the prettiest thing down here, you're just going to have to accept the attention."

Alec's shoulders shifted, his breath a soft stutter as if he'd almost laughed. He stood, shouldered his pack, and lifted his chin to suggest Magnus stand up, too. "Come on then, no way out but through."

Magnus swallowed a groan. _Through,_ yes, through darkness and mud and that ever-lingering green rot. He was rather surprised the ground was dry enough to hold this tunnel; he tried not to imagine what would happen if at some point along the way it wasn't.

Luckily, he didn't find out. Only a few hours later, they found a tunnel that angled back _up._

And then they almost ran straight into a Border, one that completely blocked the way forward. 

Magnus stepped gently around Alec until they were standing side by side, staring at what might have been a way out.

A way out that they couldn't _reach_ because there was a world in the way.

"I'll check this time." Magnus wanted to put a hand on Alec's shoulder, wanted to lean against his side, but he wasn't sure, hadn't figured out how to cross the small space between them. He tried to touch with his voice instead, to keep his words warm and steady, to try and make clear in his tone how much he wanted to provide comfort. 

"You can do that?" Alec turned. "But you don't get stuck in another-you when you cross over."

"If he's there, he's still another _me_. I usually don't bother since I can cross the border as actual-me instead of him, but I can still look." Magnus' shoulders curled closer to Alec. "It's probably not going to help, as we'll only know if you're there if I'm near you again, but if you can avoid something that makes you uncomfortable, we should try."

"Thank you." There was such sincerity in Alec's voice, deep and steady; he gave simple words more weight than Magnus had ever heard before. Magnus felt more and better appreciated than he had in his entire long life. 

"You're welcome." Magnus did _not_ manage to say things with the same bare honesty. He was working on it. 

Magnus didn't need to make himself anything to scry with, he just took a deep breath, and pressed his palm against the almost intangible wall of power between _here_ and _there._

_Alec was holding his hands, his eyes shining. He had a smile so soft it made Magnus want to cry, want to sing, want to kiss him breathless. Magnus loved him so much it hurt, so much he was drowning in it, so much he couldn't contain it. It felt like it was spilling out around them, filling the room, making the air warm, the light gold. Alec ducked his head, and started to slide a ring on Magnus' finger..._

"Magnus!" 

Magnus was sitting on cold dirt, hands pressed to his chest, trying to breathe, it was hard, so hard, he couldn't think, he couldn't make his lungs work, his thoughts, he was, he wasn't...

"Magnus, please."

Alec's voice. 

Alec's hand on his shoulder, the soft slide of cloth against his cheek. Magnus sniffed, and coughed, and sobbed out a breath. 

"Magnus, are you alright?"

Magnus blinked, and tried to focus. He was on the ground, Alec kneeling next to him, his eyes wide and dark. Alec had been wiping Magnus' face. Wiping off tears with his sleeve. Alec's hand stilled when Magnus looked at him, his palm warm against Magnus' cheek even with the fabric caught between them. Magnus swallowed, and turned into Alec's touch. He heard Alec's breath catch, felt his whole body go still.

"Sorry." Magnus closed his eyes again, tried to steady his breathing, his heartbeat, tried to calm the tangle of too many emotions churning in his gut. Most of them were actually his, he knew, rather than that other world's Magnus. That Magnus' emotions had been very simple, singular in fact, if overwhelming. "That was. Fuck."

Alec's breath stuttered out again, though it sounded less like laughter than last time. He swayed forward until his forehead came to rest against Magnus' temple. "As long as you're fine?"

Magnus nodded. 

Neither of them moved. 

"We were getting married."

Alec's breath did something sharp and abrupt in his throat, and Magnus felt a cool shift of air against his face right before Alec fell back and sat down in the dirt with a thump.

"Oh." Alec's voice was much steadier than Magnus felt. "That way won't work then." 

Magnus nodded again, then shook his head.

Neither of them got up.

"Is that normal?" Alec asked some interminable amount of time later.

Magnus finally lifted his head, made himself look at Alec directly, tried not to whine at the look on Alec's face, still and serious. "Is what normal?"

"Us. I mean. In several worlds?"

Magnus shrugged. "I don't know. I know about the Forest, not so much all the worlds it touches or how they interact."

"Huh." Alec frowned. Not as if he was annoyed or worried, just thinking. "It feels like it means something."

"You mean something. To me." Magnus lifted his chin, kept his gaze steady on Alec's face, sent a quick flick of his fingers in the direction of the Border. "Even before that."

Alec's eyes dropped before Magnus' gaze, but there was a hint of that soft blush of his again. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." It was easier this time, somehow. It was worth it, Alec was worth it, to figure out how to say what he meant, to mean what he said. Magnus made himself move, brushed the dirt off his pants as he stood. Alec scrambled up an instant later, on his feet even before Magnus could consider offering a hand to help him up. Alec adjusted his pack and offered Magnus a smile, small and shy and a little giddy. Magnus' heart lurched up in his chest, and his head spun, and he couldn't help but smile back. 

He could almost see it unwinding in front of him like a path of golden sunlight, the way to get from what he felt right now to the way that other Magnus felt, exchanging vows with that other Alec. 

He was looking forward to the journey.

* * *

They had to backtrack their path to find a way around the border that had blocked that first escape tunnel. They ended up camping in the tunnels for a second night. 

Alec was not nearly as annoyed by that as he ought to be. The tunnels were disgusting, they were no closer to finding the fallen angel and stopping it, and there was a very high probability they would have to risk tracking its magic directly to find the trail again once they got above ground, which was unreasonably risky _at best._

But it was oddly intimate, being with Magnus in the constant dim warmth below ground. He enjoyed the time, enjoyed getting to look at Magnus as much as he wanted, of listening to his stories, of feeling the way the forest's magic lingered around his fingers every time he moved. Alec was developing the bad habit of rubbing at his breastbone whenever they stood still, trying to ease the ever-present _ache_ in his chest, an endless sweet weight on his heart. 

There was a world where they got _married,_ at least two where they were in love. _Third time's lucky_ , wasn't that what they said? Third time was _them,_ here and now and wandering through the woods like a quest from a bedtime story.

Those either ended with everyone dead, or with a wedding and a happily ever after.

Alec couldn't stop himself from hoping they'd find their way to that second option. He was maybe a little crazy. He'd known Magnus a few days.He hadn't tried to kiss him properly, even now that the heat from his accidental peek into another Alec's head and heart had faded. It wasn't the right time, not quite yet. Soon, perhaps. He hoped. He'd never thought himself a particularly hopeful person, before Magnus. 

First time for everything.

Including, the next morning, what felt like the first time he'd seen sunlight in _eons._

Being underground had been difficult for Magnus, and now that they were out he'd found a small break in the trees and was just standing there, head back and eyes closed as the sunlight lingered on his face. Alec could have stood there all day, _all year,_ just looking at him, at the way the light warmed his flawless skin, got lost in the black depths of his hair, caught the embroidered trim of his cape and made it sparkle.

If Alec stayed, he might finally succumb to the endless urge to _touch_ , and he wasn't sure he was ready for that, wasn't sure Magnus wanted that, wasn't sure of anything. Not yet. He made himself turn around, made himself step away. 

Alec carefully spiralled his way out from Magnus' position, looking for any sign of a demon in the air, of a construct breaking through the trees, of the lingering twisting pain of a fallen angel's magic. It wasn't terribly likely, but it couldn't hurt to try. Alec didn't go too far, stayed close enough he could still feel the spark of Magnus' presence, the tug of his magic. He was like a lodestone to this odd new sense Alec was still figuring out, warm and soft and enticing. It was difficult to walk away, almost impossible to stop himself from looking for Magnus, from letting his steps curve back in Magnus' direction.

Magnus was Alec's center in all this strangeness, a fixed point amidst an endless tumble of things new and confusing. Only his fixed point was moving now, a slight shift in Alec's direction. Alec turned, and Magnus' path curved, as if he was following his sense of Alec as much as Alec was tracking his sense of Magnus. 

"Hi." Alec smiled as they met near a slightly crooked may tree.

"Hello there." Magnus smiled back. How did he always make it so hard to breathe? "You were headed the wrong way, angel."

"Was I?" Alec lifted his eyebrows. "How do you know?"

"The leaves like to gossip."

Alec blinked. That. Almost made sense, actually.

"The leaves saw our construct?"

"Not these leaves." Magnus' body angled to the side, his arm reaching to point to the south-west. "Those leaves."

Alec tilted his head, and Magnus gestured grandly, and they started on their new heading. 

"If the leaves gossip, why didn't we ask them to begin with?"

Magnus was close enough for Alec to feel the shift of his shoulders as he shrugged. "They're easily distracted, and don't really _see_ things after all, so they can get a bit confused."

"Ah." Alec pressed his tongue up against the edge of his teeth. They were talking about _leaves_. What had his life become? "But we think these leaves are a good source?"

Magnus' grinned at Alec, a bright flash of amusement. "More that many different leaves mostly told the same story. Also it seemed worth checking out before attempting something more risky."

Alec's back tightened, and he had to concentrate on his feet to avoid a stumble. He didn't want to think about Magnus and _risky_. "Let's definitely avoid that."

Magnus ducked his head, a shift of his hands as if he'd wanted to reach out to touch, to comfort. "Indeed."

Most of the people in Alec's life liked to talk. They wanted to fill up any brief silence with words before the quiet had a chance to properly settle. His siblings, his squad in the army, even Cat tended to always have _something_ to say. Magnus though. Magnus was, perhaps, the first one who didn't. He could always _find_ something to say, but he didn't have to. They walked, and watched the woods, and the warmth of Magnus by his side was comforting, was perfect, and neither of them needed to talk at all.

It was so nice, in fact, that Alec _did_ stumble at the sudden slick nausea of the fallen angel's magic near them. His head turned, trying to follow it. He reached for his bow, and braced it so he could string it. It hadn't been much use underground, but there was no telling what he'd need it for now. 

"Fallen angel," Alec said as he tested the tension. He lifted his chin in the direction they needed to go. 

Magnus' eyes flashed, and then he nodded, and Alec led the way. It only took a few steps before the sensations settled and he caught a hint of demon warmth. Another few steps added the signs of a construct passing, scrapes and scratches in the dirt and bark, a few scattered leaves pulled off their branches.

More than one construct, possibly. They were getting closer. It might get tricky when the trails split, but for now it was all heading in the same direction. South-west, just like the leaves had said; Alec shook his head, glanced up the trees around them. "Reliable little things, aren't they?" 

Magnus snorted. "Not always. I have ended up in some ridiculous situations by listening to the advice of trees."

"Really?" Alec didn't even try to swallow his grin. "Care to share?"

Magnus sighed, deep and dramatic, but his lips twitched with amusement. "If you insist."

"Insist might be a bit much." Alec kept his voice steady, but he was pretty sure Magnus could tell how much effort it took, how close he was to laughing in encouragement. "But we appear to have time?"

"I suppose we do." Magnus' voice dropped, so soft Alec's steps stuttered as he considered stopping to look closer at Magnus' face. "But if I'm going to embarrass myself, I demand reciprocity."

Alec snorted. "I have lived a blameless and shame-free life, whatever could you mean."

Magnus gasped, and coughed, and made a deeply offended groan when he got his breath back. "Liar."

"Terrible liar." Alec nodded. "Not much better storyteller, but if you _insist._ "

"I do." Magnus' voice lifted, prim and proper, with the barest shiver of humor hiding beneath the words. "But I'll go first, since you asked so _nicely._ "

"How kind." Alec had meant to continue teasing, but he couldn't manage it, he meant it too much, and his voice gave him away, low and steady. 

Magnus ducked his head and coughed again, but when he looked up his mask was back, smooth and amused, and his hands flared out to emphasize his words as he began to talk. It hurt, a little, to see that mask, but Alec had learned how to hope again. To hope for Magnus, to hope one day he'd feel safe letting Alec see him without it.

In the meantime... he was very good at spinning a tale. Alec let his weight settle on the balls of his feet as he went back to tracking, let the tension ease out of his shoulders, and enjoyed the sound of Magnus' voice filling the air between them. 

* * *

Four days.

Four days of the forest shifting around them. They lost the trail six times. Magnus wished there was some way to yell at the Forest to knock it off without looking like he'd lost his mind. Standing in a clearing and swearing at the ground certainly wasn't the answer. 

They'd had to ask directions from a mermaid when one of their trails lead them straight into an ocean. She'd been very grumpy when her singing had no effect on either of them. Magnus, because of the Forest. Alec... Magnus wasn't sure if Alec was protected by his angel blood, or the fact that he was entirely uninterested in women. Magnus tried very hard not to feel smug about that when the mermaid slapped the water with her tail and pouted, but he failed. When she threatened to call up the water and drown them the hard way, he called his fire to his hands, and the weight of the Forest's magic to his back, and she relented. They were sparse directions, but she pointed them to the rock bridge that brought them to a different beach, this one with a demon trail back into the wooded part of the Forest. 

The beaches and cliffs were still part of the Forest, and there was even a desert in Ragnor's usual stomping grounds. But it never felt right to Magnus when he stumbled into a section that wasn't full of trees.

It was patently obvious by now that they'd been following multiple demon trails, that the fallen angel had been up to something for a while now. That he was, at some point, going to have to go demon hunting, see how many were still around, how many were still hurting people, and stop them. But he couldn't do that yet. They had to find the fallen angel first. And he couldn't think of a single thing he could do to help that along that he wasn't _already doing._

He needed a distraction. Magnus had never wondered before what assorted lady succubus types did if the man they were trying to entice was gay. He couldn't think of any remotely safe way to experiment and find out, but he twisted the problem around to pass the time once they were on their way again.

It almost worked, almost settled the worry twisting in the back of his throat, almost distracted him from thinking about _being alone with Alec_.

Four days of watching Alec, talking to him, listening to him, wandering through the occasional comfortable silence. Sometimes it was hard to remember the demons, the fallen angel's trap, the fact that it had tried to go after Catarina, almost hurt a child. Sometimes he almost forgot what he was, what the Forest needed, what they were supposed to do, what would inevitably happen once they were done.

Magnus wanted more. 

Magnus wanted more of Alec. He wanted to know every thought in Alec's head, every expression he could make. Magnus wanted to know what Alec felt like, skin to skin.

He wanted to see Alec laugh. Magnus hadn't managed to make him laugh properly, not even with his most ridiculous stories. He'd gotten those soft huffs of breath, a snicker or two, something he might almost deem a _chuckle._ But that was as far as Alec went. Not that being half-lost in a magical forest hunting a fallen angel who liked to play with demons was really the sort of thing that inspired amusement. It'd still be nice. 

Magnus was sure he had a nice laugh. Alec had a nice _everything._ It ought not to be possible for one single mortal to be that attractive. Magnus sighed. Alec turned to look at him, realized there was nothing happening, and rolled his eyes. Which was _also_ attractive, damn him. 

_Shit._ Magnus kicked at the ground, and hit a root. "Ouch." 

Alec stopped and looked back again. "Are you ok?"

"Yes." Magnus kicked the ground again. Slightly more carefully and with the other foot. "I wasn't paying attention and I startled myself. I'm not hurt." _Except my pride._

"Good." Alec seemed much more pleased by Magnus being an idiot than was really called for, in Magnus' opinion. And then he reached a hand back toward Magnus. "Come walk with me, I'll warn you about any more roots."

Magnus couldn't move. They talked, (Magnus flirted, Alec changed the subject), they made camp, (Magnus built the fire, Alec ate), they discussed their surroundings, (Magnus complained, Alec rolled his eyes), but they kept their space. They carefully, consciously, never made physical contact.

Magnus swallowed, and took Alec's hand. 

Alec's hand was warm, his touch gentle as his fingers curled around Magnus' palm, their thumbs braced together. Alec's grip tightened, his skin almost rough as the angle of their hands shifted, and then he leaned forward and his elbow bent so he could pull, and Magnus stumbled forward until they were standing side by side, Magnus staring down at their clasped hands. He could feel his heart beating beneath his ribs, could feel his breath lingering in his throat. He didn't want to let go. 

Alec squeezed, as if he understood, and then tugged gently. He didn't let go. "This way."

Magnus followed. He wasn't sure how long it took before he managed to lift his head, to pay attention to their surroundings again. Someday he wouldn't have to be responsible. Someday he'd be able to focus just on Alec. Someday.

They weren't quite there yet.


	4. Chapter 4

They were holding hands again. It was probably stupid to be delighted by that, but Alec was. It was also a stupid way to track _or_ be prepared to fight, but Alec couldn't seem to care. He'd hold Magnus' hand all the way to hell and back, if that was an option.

It wasn't. 

They found what was clearly the trail of another construct, and it was fresh. Clear enough they could both follow it without resorting to magic. Magnus slipped his hand free. Alec tried not to feel sad about the loss of contact, because obviously _being able to fight_ was more important. It was hard to convince himself of that. Because sometimes Alec was clearly an idiot.

Alec saw Magnus flex his hand by his side, and maybe. Well, maybe they were both idiots. Magnus took a deep breath, Alec readied his bow, and they separated, one on each side of the trail, slow and cautious. They could hear the construct before they saw it, and they shared a quick glance. _Why is it so loud?_

Because it was a fucking disaster, Alec realized when they finally caught up. It had five 'legs', for lack of a better term, small branches bundled and tied together in sequence with large reinforced knots in between to give it something like joints. They all radiated out from the middle, but they were uneven, different lengths and strengths, and the construct tilted crazily each time it tried to take a step. There was a glint of glass in the middle, smooth and unbroken, and Alec blinked as the sun reflected into his eyes.

The jar wasn't broken.

He hadn't felt the demon, Magnus hadn't seen it, because it wasn't free. Yet. He glanced at Magnus again, a sharp instant of agreement, and they both dashed forward to stop it before the jar broke. 

Alec dropped his bow—it wasn't like he could shoot a stick with another stick and have much effect—and slid into the thing, grabbing and tangling himself in-between the three legs closest to the ground. Magnus was barely a step behind, and something like wind, only _green,_ slid over Alec's shoulder and wrapped around the jar. Then it _yanked,_ and Alec _felt_ a screech so high-pitched it was almost inaudible, so thin and spread out that he couldn't tell if it was the magic or the construct or the demon itself protesting. 

The jar was in Magnus' hands, and the sticks lost all tension and momentum, collapsing around Alec with an awkward clatter. Alec heaved them away but it was too late. The empty tangle of vines that had caged the jar seemed to move, trying to wrap around him. He could _feel_ the dark threads of the fallen angel's magic sliding out of the vines, reaching for him, trying to wrap around his wrists. 

It felt hungry.

It was so much worse than he'd expected. His gloves and clothes weren't enough, not now that he was this close, almost caught in the tangle of sticks, not now that he'd breathed it in. The slick feel of the fallen angel's magic was everywhere, surrounding him, _inside him,_ cold and viscous inside his nose, his throat, sliding down into his lungs. It was pushing, burning, trying to rip him apart from the inside, trying to devour the pieces of him it could reach. 

He shoved himself away and back. He turned around and staggered, fell down onto his hands and knees _._ He inhaled hard through his nose and swallowed even harder, trying to keep his breakfast down.His body jerked, tried to retch, tried to pull itself apart to get away from that _feeling,_ the _wrong_ from the remnants of the construct behind him, _inside him_. He was focusing enough on staying conscious that he couldn't tell what Magnus was doing behind him, couldn't tell what Magnus was saying, though Alec could hear his voice, a rapid unending patter of nonsense syllables just loud enough to be soothing. 

He did notice the bright flare of heat, the crackle of a fire, the _whoosh_ of air heating and rising, and his pain and nausea disappeared. 

Alec swallowed down bile and groaned in disgust. He braced his hand against a nearby ash, hard enough he could feel the diamond-shaped-pattern even through his glove, and used it to help get himself back onto his feet.

"That was fun." Alec coughed, his throat a little too annoyed with him to make talking easy. 

"Are you all right?" Magnus' voice sounded awful, breathless and almost stuttering. His eyes were more black than gold, darker than Alec had ever seen them. But when his hand settled on Alec's shoulder it was warm and steady.

Alec managed a shrug. "I'm fine _now,_ but if the magic in those things is enough to make me sick, what am I supposed to do around the actual fallen angel?"

"Hmmm." Magnus' eyes flickered, golden then shadowed, and his hand slid down Alec's arm before falling free. His feet shuffled almost awkwardly back and forth, and his fingers curled and uncurled, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them. 

"Magnus." Alec watched him for a moment, trying to interpret his sudden case of nerves. "Was that an _I have no idea_ noise, or an _I have an idea but I don't like it_ sound?

Magnus went completely still, and then he shrugged with his whole body, graceful and eloquent again. "The second, but we have something else to do first."

"Never eat again?"

Magnus' mouth quirked up for a moment. "Two things to do first, apparently."

"The jar."

Magnus nodded.

They made camp first, doubling up their usual wards, doubling the cover on their lean-to to hide the light they'd need to study the jar; digging some mint out of his bag to chew while they worked helped Alec settle. By the time they sat down side-by-side, Magnus' light-stone shedding cool white light and the jar cradled between Magnus' hands, Alec felt much better.

And not just because he was close enough to bump his shoulder against Magnus' whenever he wanted.

That didn't hurt, though.

Alec sat and watched Magnus' hands, the angle of his knuckles and the length of his fingers, the way the light caught in the glass as it moved beneath his palms. There were white lines in the glass, much like the jar Cat had used to hold the fallen angel's magic-trap, but the pattern was different. It felt like a barred door deep beneath the earth, felt hard and cold, so unlike the soft comfort of Cat's magic.

It clearly still _worked_ though, no hint of the demon's heat slipping through.

"When I found the first construct, I thought something carried it over a Border, something was _with_ it, something broke the jar." Magnus was almost muttering, thinking out loud more than talking to Alec. 

"This one was alone." Alec answered him anyway.

"Hmm," Magnus hummed in agreement. "Can you check this for me?"

Alec nodded even before Magnus finished speaking. He took the jar, slowly ran his thumb along the curve. He almost startled, almost dropped it at the barest catch against his skin. It almost felt like a crack, but there was still no hint of the demon escaping, no heat or light or darkness that didn't belong. Alec lifted the jar up to his eyes, turned it in the light.

There were several of the not-cracks, straight and clean, always between the white lines, never crossing them. "It's scored. To help it break."

Magnus put his hands out and Alec returned the jar. Magnus looked down at it, his lips pushed together.

"The constructs are sent out alone on purpose." Alec continued when Magnus didn't, saying what Magnus had figured out, the conclusion he'd wanted Alec to confirm. "They're _built_ to be clumsy, so they'll be sure to break on their own sooner or later."

"But we still can't be sure _why_."

"To bring us here following them, probably," Alec said.

Not that that really answered the why, it just shifted it. _Why_ did the fallen angel want the Forest's attention? Where was it leading them? Did it _want_ a Guardian to come calling? If so, why had it trapped the magic in the construct to kill one? Alec clenched his hands into fists, temper hot behind his eyes, an echo of potential grief howling in his lungs at the thought of Magnus _dying._

He tried to keep his voice steady when he spoke again. "Or someone like me, since its magic trick was designed to kill you."

"Breathe, angel." Magnus leaned in, first his elbow then his shoulder bumping against Alec's arm; Alec had clearly failed at impersonating _calm._ "We've made it this far together, haven't we?"

Alec swayed closer, warming himself in Magnus' presence. "Yes, we have."

The tension down Magnus' back eased, and he rested his head on Alec's shoulder. "We'll make it the rest of the way."

Alec closed his eyes, tried to breathe out all his worry and tension. "Tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Magnus agreed. "But first things first." 

Magnus sat up straight, pushed the jar in front of him, as far out as his arms would go, and whistled. 

The ground swallowed the jar whole, nothing except a spill of loose dirt to mark where it had been. A few moments later Alec _felt_ a scream rather than heard it, and he jerked back. Not that he had any clear idea where he could go, what he was getting away _from,_ not that he really needed to get away from something that ate demons, not that he hadn't known the Forest ate things. People. Things.

He just hadn't been prepared for that scream, ragged and piercing despite not actually being a _sound._

Magnus wiped his hands together, one final flick of his fingers as if sending the last lingering touch of the demon far away. 

"Second things second?"

Magnus huffed out a breath, leaned back further and further until he was braced on his hands behind him, staring up at the glimpses of dark sky beyond the canopy. 

Alec waited.

"There's a way to share your magic."

Alec waited again, but Magnus didn't continue. "That sounds promising?" 

Magnus shrugged, just one shoulder, so it looked almost like he was leaning further away from Alec. "It's not safe."

"I don't think throwing up on a fallen angel will slow it down once we find it." Being literally ripped apart by being so close to something so antithetical to his own blood wasn't a great possibility either, but Alec hadn't mentioned that feeling to Magnus yet. He probably should.

Magnus' head tilted further back, a glint of light catching on gold as he rolled his eyes. "I'm serious, Alec."

"So am I."

Magnus rolled his head to the side until he was looking straight at Alec again, the deep crease of his frown visible between his eyebrows.

"If I can't control my reaction, I'm a liability." _If I die I can't help you._ "Whatever it is, please. Tell me."

Magnus' eyes closed. "I can take some of it away from you. Reduce the effect it has on you, give me an echo so I can feel some of what you feel. Maybe even recognize the fallen angel myself."

"Alright."

Magnus sat up, an aggressive shift of his weight as he moved into Alec's space, eyes open so he could glare. "It is not at all 'alright'."

"Why not?"

"I'd need your name."

"Alexander G—" Magnus slapped a hand over Alec's mouth to stop him before he could finish.

"I'll have access to _everything,_ I could drain you dry, and I can't even—" Magnus dropped his hand, his head tilted away, avoiding looking at Alec. "I don't have a name anymore, the Forest took it."

"I didn't know that was possible."

Magnus laughed, but it was dry and unamused. "The Forest likes being impossible. I'm part of it now, and it's inside me, and it's _too big,_ there's no one name that can hold it. So I can't give one back to you. There's no chance for balance, no way for you to protect yourself."

"I don't need to protect myself from you."

The noise Magnus made was small and sharp, as painful as a wound. 

Alec reached out, placed his palm against Magnus' cheek, and pushed as gently as he could to encourage Magnus to lift his head, to look back at him. Magnus blinked, the shine of tears clear in his eyes. "Do you trust me?"

Magnus' eyes widened, his chin lifted in surprise. "Of course." 

"Then why is it so hard for you to accept that I trust you?" Magnus' lips parted, and it was the hardest decision Alec had ever made, not to kiss him. _Not yet._ "My full name is Alexander Gideon Lightwood."

Magnus' breath whined out of his throat as he exhaled. "I couldn't bear it if something goes wrong, if you're in danger because of me, if I hurt you."

"So don't hurt me." Alec stroked carefully around Magnus' ear, let his hand fall. "The rest of it? We have no control over, we just have to try our best."

"Oh." Magnus sniffed. "Well, if someone's going to try and be _reasonable_ about it."

Alec couldn't stop the flick of his eyes, the glance down at Magnus' mouth and back up to his eyes. But he knew, still, _not yet,_ and he pressed his lips to Magnus' forehead instead, inhaled the warmth of him before leaning back. "Dinner?"

Magnus shook his head, the half-stricken expression on his face fading, his worry hiding behind gentle amusement. "I thought you weren't ever eating again."

"I changed my mind."

"Well then." Magnus spread his hands wide, his voice lighter and easier. "We better get you fed."

* * *

In the morning they followed the construct's trail back where it had come from and found a Border, one that flared too bright before dimming too dark, one clearly out of balance. Magnus hummed and squinted his eyes, trying to trace the way the power stuttered. They stepped closer, Alec's eyes half closed as if it felt wrong to him, too. Magnus reached out and laid a palm against the air. He got one second of darkness, _no Magnus in that world,_ and then jerked his arm back and shook his hand out. "It's hot."

Alec looked down at his arms, and Magnus noticed the skin starting to flush very slightly pink. He lifted a hand, moved it closer to where Magnus' hand had hovered in the air, and just as he was about to lean closer, trying to track the curl of heat, Magnus saw the pulse of energy and pulled him back with a hard yank. They were still staggering back when the border _jumped_ half-a-foot closer to them. 

"Uh." Alec swallowed audibly. "What?"

"There's no Ward-Witch on this one." Magnus' voice was low and rough. "This isn't in my usual area. I don't know who is supposed to be on the other side of this Border, but they are _not_ , and they haven't been for a long time."

"That sounds bad."

Magnus frowned, kept his hand wrapped around Alec's arm, holding them both in place. "The Forest usually gives a sign when something's wrong. It _yells,_ metaphorically at least, a flare of light or darkness where it shouldn't be, something to follow so one of the Guardians can heal the wound."

"But no one came to help this one?" Alec whispered, as if afraid to disturb the magic around them.

It felt unsafe here, unnatural. Too many demons, and this awful broken Border. Magnus bit his lip, focused on the pain until he knew he could keep his voice steady. "Or something happened to them."

Alec stood still beside him, and it felt like something was waiting. Waiting for _them._ When he spoke, he sounded resigned. "We're plan B?"

Magnus' shoulders curled in, tight and stiff for half a heartbeat before he sighed. "We're plan B."

"Shit." Alec lifted his free arm and pushed a hand through his hair.

Magnus coughed something that almost turned into a bitter laugh. "Precisely."

"Is it something in the woods, do you think, or something in that other world?"

"Can you feel anything here besides old trails?" 

Alec closed his eyes, tilted his head, and then shook it when he opened them up again. "Do you _see_ anything?"

Magnus shook his head right back. 

Alec's jaw clenched, then eased with a sigh. "What if there's another me in that world? How am I supposed to help you if I'm stuck in him?"

"There isn't another me in that world." Magnus answered, forcing himself to form each word precisely. "Experience might suggest..." His voice trailed off, but Alec met his gaze, Alec nodded. 

After the last two worlds, after this week spent together in the Forest, it was hard to imagine an Alec in a world that didn't have a Magnus. It wasn't at all a _logical_ conclusion, but it felt true, and Magnus could see that Alec felt the same. 

"Alright, then." Alec stepped back, let his arm slide free from Magnus' grasp, and shook his hands loose before reaching for his bow. 

Magnus placed a hand on Alec's arm, waited for Alec to pause and look at him before he spoke. "Without a Ward-Witch, without an anchor, I can't _see_ what might be over there."

Alec shrugged. "I've never been able to see what's over there."

Magnus huffed out a breath, and blinked until his eyes stopped burning. 

"Alright, then," Magnus echoed softly. He reached out a hand, waiting for Alec to grasp it. "Thank you, Alexander Gideon Lightwood."

Alec staggered, and the world flared so bright Magnus felt blind, Magnus felt, Magnus _felt,_ could feel the magic around him, could feel the steady shine of the Forest, the uneven buzz of the Border, the stale sickly sweet echoes of fallen angel magic in the air. Magnus could feel _himself,_ could feel his own magic at rest, rich and warm. His magic felt _beautiful,_ golden and precious against Alec's skin. 

_Oh._ Magnus' mouth moved, but he couldn't speak. He blinked his eyes over and over until the new sensations settled in his chest, until the world steadied enough he could see. He was still holding Alec's hand, and his whole body felt the chill of the air against his palm when he let go, when he let Alec slip out of his grasp. 

He breathed. They turned. They stepped into the Border. It flared around them, hot enough to burn, and then they slowed rather than crossing. It felt like the Wards were trying to push them away, back to the Forest, their touch as cold as death. But they weren't proper Wards, just remnants, ghostly fingers trailing against their skin, too thin to grab, too weak to resist Magnus for long. They snapped, flinging Magnus and Alec the rest of the way through. 

It was not a pretty world. The sky was scorched dark, but not so dark they couldn't see the shift of some large winged creatures soaring far above them. The ground beneath their feet was dead. It wasn't dead like normal ground outside the Forest, which had no life or sentience of its own but could still support life. This ground _hungered,_ tried to pull their magic down into it, to claim their lives for itself, though the two of them would never be enough to ease the ache of an entire dead world.

"I think I know what happened to the Ward-Witch." Alec sounded winded, like it was work just to stand, just to speak. 

Magnus nodded, turned carefully to _see_ what the Border looked like on this side. It was frozen solid. Too solid for a living body to pass through; the constructs made sense, now. The only thing that could get out, guaranteed to cause trouble, to draw attention. To draw in someone like them, people who might be able to open the Border again.

The Border the Ward-Witch had died to seal. "Death magic is very powerful."

Magnus turned back around, trying not to let his attention linger on Alec, tried not to remember the way he'd winced at his first step. Alec was more vulnerable to the greed of the earth below them as his energy was already low, already stretched thin to reach Magnus. Even odds that Magnus wouldn't even _notice_ the tell-tale nausea of a fallen angel's magic against Alec's senses because he already felt nauseous at the risk he'd put Alec under. If something happened to him, it would be because of Magnus.

The longer they took, the worse it would get. Magnus looked out into the world.

A surprisingly tidy ruin of grey weathered stone stood just far enough away to avoid the tidal shift of an unmoored Border. It seemed like their best bet. Probably a trap, but necessary all the same. Alec rolled his shoulders as he looked around, and headed toward the ruin without saying another word. Magnus skipped his first few steps to catch up, careful to keep an extra arm's length of distance in case Alec had to turn quickly with his bow at any point.

There didn't seem to be anything else in the vicinity, not that either of them trusted that impression. The air was hot enough that Magnus couldn't tell, even via Alec's borrowed senses, if there were demons around. He didn't want to use his own magic to track, because out of the Forest he only had so much, and if he ran out of his reserves before they'd taken care of things they'd be in serious trouble.

The ruin was odd, the proportions a little off. The door was too tall and the windows too short. The walls were all different heights, there was no roof at all, but the stones were all square and even and as smooth as if they'd just been laid. In contrast, the wood of the door and window frames was damaged and ancient, the corners splintering, the middles sagging and spongy. There was no scent though, not dust or sand or stone or wood, not rot, not _anything,_ nothing anywhere. The absence was distracting, and added to the tension crawling up Magnus' back, heavy across his shoulders and wrists.

Alec peered in the first window, careful not to let his shoulder or arm brush against the ruin. "Magnus, swap."

Magnus slid carefully behind him. Alec stepped back to the corner of the ruin so he could manage as broad a view as possible of their surroundings. It was still quiet and Magnus looked through the empty window. There were bundles of twigs wrapped and stacked like firewood, nets hanging from hooks on the walls full of vines, and a very rickety bookshelf that somehow stayed steady under rows of glass jars. There was a circle on the floor, symbols along the outside, drawn in something a cracked and unpleasant brownish red. They'd definitely come to the right place. 

"Is that a summoning circle?" Alec's voice was low, but steady enough that it carried.

"It is." Magnus tried to _look,_ but the air here wavered with magic, different enough from the Forest that it was difficult to interpret. "There's something off about it, though."

"Being made of blood isn't off enough for you?"

"More than." Magnus frowned. "I'm not sure if we'd learn anything from going in, and I am quite sure that it's warded."

"Plus there's almost no way to see if anything's coming." Magnus could hear the barest tread of footsteps, assumed Alec was moving to try and see around the other side of the ruin.

Magnus grunted, still staring at the symbols... "Oh." 

"That's a comforting thing to hear." 

Magnus could picture Alec rolling his eyes as he spoke. That actually was comforting. "The usual symbols to pull power through the void between worlds aren't there. The demons aren't coming from another world. This _is_ their world."

"Shit."

"So eloquent, angel."

Alec snorted. "Burn it down."

"That will assuredly draw attention, and may take more power than we have to spare."

"We're not going to be able to find the singular fallen angel we need to stop in a literal hell dimension." Magnus glanced at him, but Alec was still scanning the horizon. "We need to draw its attention, and if we can't stop it, we need to know we slowed it down by breaking its tools."

"And time is not on our side," Magnus whispered. Alec's shoulders were starting to slump as if it was hard to stand up straight. Magnus swallowed, lifted his chin, and raised his voice for Alec to hear. "Step back a bit more. Just in case."

"I go where you go." He didn't move further away from the ruin. 

Magnus scoffed out a breath. Idiot man. 

He got to work without another word, carefully curling his magic through the air, as delicately as possible, avoiding every heavy swirl and dark patch of this world's magic that he could _see._ He set the idea of a spark in each of the nets, three along the front of the rack of branches, and two under the shelves to bring the total to nine. _Three by three_. He held them carefully in the front of his thoughts, balanced them so they wouldn't move, and slid his heel backward. _Once, twice, thrice,_ three was magic, always, and the sparks in his head burned a little brighter. He turned, and there was Alec, right by his elbow, the hint of a frown on his face.

Alec escorted him back to the Border, and Magnus let the sparks go. 

For a second everything was still. Then just a hint of sound, a small hungry crackle, followed by a flare of orange light bursting up above the walls, and an audible tangible _whoomph_ as heat rose and the air was pushed back and away. It might have been the way the heat made the air waver, but it looked as if the walls of the ruin were starting to sway.

"Impressive." Alec was carefully _not_ staring at the inferno that used to be the ruined building; it was bright enough to make most anything else invisible in contrast, dim and shadowy. 

"I do know how to make a statement."

"It would seem so." The wave of nausea echoing the words was enough to make Alec stagger. Magnus gagged and his eyes watered. _And this is after weakening it._ "So nice to have a visitor."

The 'person' speaking drifted down to land on the ground in front of them. They were hard to look at, their edges not quite solid, shifting shadows behind and around them that implied the spread of several sets of wings. They had a human face, but behind it they had too many eyes, and under their skin Magnus could see the flicker of firelight.

Magnus had a feeling this one wasn't going to be susceptible to balefire; they might be _made_ of balefire. Alec was tense beside him, an arrow drawn and waiting, but he didn't let loose. It was hard to know where to shoot something that appeared to be pretending to have a body.

The fallen angel didn't glance at Alec, ignored him completely, all their focus on Magnus. "Such a pretty little Guardian, aren't you? Bright and fierce and fiery. Perfect for melting my cage."

They gestured, and a wave of heat rolled over Magnus to hit the Border behind him. It throbbed, a deep discordant echo through the air, but the spell keeping it closed held steady.

"Why should I do that?" 

The fallen angel shrugged. "What else can you do? Your fire won't hurt me, and there is nothing of your Forest here to help you."

"Should have brought the mermaid with us." Alec muttered. "She'd put their fire out."

Magnus bit his bottom lip to try and stop an entirely inappropriate urge to giggle.

"Hysterical already?" The fallen angel swayed forward, the slow easy slink of a predator convinced it was in charge. "You may be easier to convince than I thought."

"I doubt it." Magnus lifted his chin as he stared at the fallen angel. "What could you possibly offer?"

"Your life."

Magnus rolled his eyes. "I've lived a long time. You'll need a better offer than that."

"Will I?" They smiled. Magnus gagged again. "Do you think I can't keep you here, just as I am kept here? Do you think I can't kill you, over and over, as your Forest tries and fails to bring you back to it?"

Alec growled and slid forward a step, his feet scraping loudly through the dry dirt and sand. 

The fallen angel didn't react. They kept their gaze on Magnus, their smile growing, slow and lazy, until it was much too wide for their face. Magnus held in a shudder, but let his distaste show on his face. Maybe the fallen angel would think it was fear.

"I don't think they can see me." Alec took another step closer to the fallen angel. He tilted his head and waved a hand, and not even a single shadowy wing twitched in acknowledgement.

Magnus didn't let himself look at Alec, didn't let his eyes follow the wave of his hand, didn't look at the line of his shoulders to check if he was slumping any more than before. He kept his focus on the fallen angel.

"I can't very well open your Border if you kill me. You'd drain too much of my magic." Magnus made himself smile, bright and sharp. "Next?"

"Draining your magic is an excellent idea." The layers of shadows fluttered, and the fallen angel lifted off the ground. "I could break that lock myself, don't you think?"

"It must be the angel blood." Alec frowned, and lowered his bow, shifted his grip around until it was off to the side, out of the way."The opposite of fallen angel blood. Like fire and water. Water into steam..." 

"What?" Magnus couldn't look at Alec, couldn't talk to him, couldn't even risk looking at him directly to try and read his expression. Any metaphor that involved _boiling into non-existence_ was not one Magnus wanted Alec to finish. 

"Do you think you can keep me out, little Guardian?" The fallen angel's voice was low, rolling through the air like distant thunder. Magnus could feel their magic, feathery strokes drifting across his personal wards.

It was hard to tell without being able to look at him, but Alec seemed to be staring at the head of his arrow. "Like water puts out fire. The fallen angel almost kills the angel. The angel returns the favor?"

"No." Magnus couldn't stop himself from glancing at Alec this time.

Alec shook his head. Magnus stopped himself from stepping closer, from trying to reach out. 

Alec's arrow disappeared between his fingers and he exhaled, slow and steady and controlled. His elbow jerked, short and sharp, and the arrow seemed to jump in his hand. 

"So arrogant." Magnus blinked, the hiss of the fallen angel's voice finally drawing his attention away from Alec. The fallen angel waited until Magnus was looking at their face, and then they whipped their power against Magnus' wards, hard enough Magnus staggered down to one knee.

But his wards held. Magnus was sure he could continue to hold them, but that didn't help, that didn't solve anything. That was just a stalemate, and Alec couldn't stay here forever. The world itself would kill him if the fallen angel didn't. Magnus shook his head, trying to think of something, anything else he could do.

"I felt like their magic was trying to tear me apart when we fought that construct, and that was an accident, indirect contact." From this angle it was easier to look, to examine Alec through his lashes, to see without it being obvious what he was watching. "What do you think my blood will do to them, if I can get my blood inside them?"

 _Tear you_ both _apart,_ Magnus thought. His fingers dug into his palms as he held himself still, held his voice in his chest so he wouldn't yell. Magnus could see the red between Alec's fingers now, could see how carefully he was holding his arm so the blood wouldn't fall to the ground. Magnus watched as his wrist turned, covering the arrow in his blood. 

The fallen angel inhaled, as if it could smell Magnus' fear. "There it is."

"I need your help, Magnus." Alec wouldn't look at him, was staring at the fallen angel. "I can shoot it, but I don't know how to send my magic with it, how to make sure."

Magnus closed his eyes, and he heard the fallen angel laugh. It was a terrible sound, too many layers to it, vibrating up higher than he could hear, low enough his stomach ached. He _reached,_ found the very center of Alec's power, bright and shining, waiting for him. It reached back, giving itself up to him completely, and Magnus almost sobbed. He could taste Alec's blood in the back of his throat as he _hooked_ Alec's power to the tip of the arrow.

Alec's power trusted him. _Alec_ trusted him. Alec trusted Magnus to do what had to be done.

The fallen angel lashed out again. Their magic crackled and burned against Magnus' wards until his hair felt singed. Magnus bowed his head.

"Magnus?" Alec's voice cracked around his name, and Magnus made himself look up, made himself meet Alec's gaze.

Alec winced. Magnus wasn't sure he'd ever forgive Alec for this, and he knew he'd never forgive himself. Because Alec was right. Magnus would do it. Magnus would use Alec to destroy the fallen angel, to protect the Forest and all the worlds it touched, even if it would destroy Alec, too. 

"No pretty words this time, Guardian?" The fallen angel rose another several feet off the ground. Their magic wrapped around Magnus' wards, sparking and twisting. They lifted Magnus up until his feet couldn't reach the ground, and he was surrounded by searing heat. It flared up, brighter and brighter, until Magnus couldn't see past it to Alec. 

Magnus closed his eyes and barely held in his scream.

The fallen angel screamed for him, the sound flowing out and out until Magnus' head throbbed in counterpoint, until the ground started to hum in harmony. It was a triumphant noise, a fanfare, a declaration of success. The fallen angel could feel Magnus' pain, and they thought they were winning.

For a moment, Magnus fell into the pain and pretended. He pretended the fallen angel was winning, pretended this was over, pretended he didn't have to...

But he couldn't. Not when he knew this could work. 

If they were going to sacrifice Alec, Magnus would make sure it was worth it. No reason to hold back now. No reason not to use everything he had, because if Alec died? If Alec died because of what Magnus did?

 _It's going to destroy me._

He could use that, too.

Death magic was very powerful. Three deaths, angel-blooded, fallen angel, forest spirit... with that Magnus could do anything. With that, Magnus could do the impossible. With that, Magnus could break a world.

Magnus _pushed_ his wards out as hard and far as he could. The fallen angel's scream stopped and their magic stuttered in surprise, flinging Magnus back until he hit the Border and slid back to the ground. He was mostly sitting upright, with the cool slick edge of the Border against his back. He felt the fallen angel's power curling around him, scratching against his wards, pushing against his thoughts, searching for a weak point to breach. He opened his eyes.

Alec was looking at him now, eyes dark and still as he waited. His eyes were dry, but Magnus could see him trembling, could see the clench of his jaw, could see the sorrow in the line of his shoulders, the pain in the tension in his stance.

Magnus had to hurry, before Alec couldn't do his part any more.

The first part was easy. He and Alec were already connected, so he just had to _twist_ their magic together, tight enough one would pull the other whether Magnus could pay attention to them or not. The second part wasn't much more difficult. He _reached_ for the Forest, for his home. He couldn't get to it, not from here, but he spread his power out along the frozen edges of the Border, pushed through every shiver, every crack, until there was almost nothing left inside him.

Magnus nodded. Alec lifted his arrow, and Magnus let the fallen angel in.

It burned, worse than balefire lingering against his fingers, worse than dying, hurt so much Magnus couldn't even scream. It hurt enough he lost track of what he was doing, but he felt the _pull_ of Alec's angelic blessing flying away, pouring out of him, and it was enough to make Magnus remember, to make him act.

The arrow hit, and the fallen angel screamed, real pain this time, the sound as thick and lingering as blood, Alec's voice a dim echo. Their magics were all tangled together, their lives linked, and Magnus could _feel_ it, could feel the angelic blessing surging through the fallen angel, could feel Alec's blood and Alec's magic pushing it apart. Magnus could feel Alec's agony as the fallen angel's corruption pushed back, burning and twisting its way through Alec's body, devouring every scrap of Alec's magic that it could reach. 

Magnus was crying, it was hard to breathe, but he _pulled_ on the fallen angel's magic, on the last small thread of his connection to Alexander, _pulled_ them in, closer and tighter. Magnus _pushed_ every drop of his magic out again, fire and sorrow and rage exploding down the path he'd made for it, pushing through him, then pushing through the Border.

Magnus started to fall as the Border melted, felt Alec and the fallen angel falling with him, felt all three of them dying as their magic poured out, and out, filling the void between this hell and the Forest. Magnus tried to hold Alec, but Magnus' senses were going numb, he couldn't tell if he had him, if they had each other; he didn't dare wait to be sure.

Magnus _pushed_ again, cutting the ties between them and the fallen angel, shoving it out to follow the cold trails of power from the Ward-Witch's sacrifice, hoping it would be enough.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look here's the sex-magicky nsfw finale! If you're somewhere it might be awkward to read that sort of thing, have a warning. ;)

Alec inhaled, blinked up at the flicker of leaves between him and the sky. He felt the earth beneath him, a root in his side, a stone against his hip, _he was in his own head, alone in his own head._ He sat up, ignored the way the world lurched, his fingers digging into the dry leaves and needles beneath him to try and keep himself steady. He ached, every muscle, down through every bone, and his throat felt dry enough he was surprised he couldn't taste blood as it cracked.

He couldn't _feel_ Magnus, there was no tug from the connection Magnus had formed with his name, no warm banked embers from his magic somewhere nearby, nothing Alec could feel at all. He couldn't see him either, not with his first hurried look around. He swallowed, choked, swallowed again. He ignored the stutter of his heart in his chest, the heavy throb of his pulse in his head. He started to push himself to his feet, but the woods spun again, and all he managed was an awkward tumble sideways before he made it up to his knees. "Magnus?"

He looked again, _again,_ this couldn't be it, he couldn't have lost him, not now, not after they'd made it out...

They'd made it out. Alec looked over his shoulder, found the elm tree that had marked the twisting edge of the border before they'd gone through it, and realized he couldn't feel it anymore. He couldn't feel _anything_ from the woods. No soft hum of power in the air, no sensation of movement just past the edges of his vision, no idea of where it was solid, where it was growing, where it moved and where it slept... no idea at all where the edges and exits and borders might be.

He pushed his lips together to hold in _everything_.

He felt _blind,_ wondered if this was how the woods had always seemed to his siblings, mysteries hiding just out of sight, no idea where to go or how to get there. No way to protect himself from anything, unless he was lucky enough to see it with mundane sight before it ate him.

No wonder his family hadn't wanted to stay in the forest's shadow.

He couldn't tell if it had _worked._ If they'd killed the fallen angel, hurt it, split it apart into the void so it would at least take awhile to reform. He couldn't tell if the border still shifted, still sparked, dangerous and unsteady. He couldn't tell if Magnus had made it out. Alec kept trying to _reach_ , to feel with a sense that wasn't there anymore, to find him and the rich warmth of his magic _._

The last thing he could remember was Magnus, the feel of him wrapping around the pain, making it bearable. 

Alec covered his mouth, inhaled and counted to five, exhaled as slowly as possible. He couldn't panic. Not here. Not now. Alec shoved harder against the ground, made it to his feet with a deep shuddering breath that he knew was almost a sob. He took a step, he didn't know which direction, _did it matter?_ There wasn't anywhere he knew where to go. Until there, _there,_ a hint of movement, too slow and close to the ground to be a shift of branches or leaves in the wind.

Relief swept through him, hollowed him out, pushed him helplessly closer, and with each step it was harder to breathe, with each step he _hoped_. By the time Alec found him, sitting on the ground with a hand pressed to his forehead, Alec's throat was too tight to speak. But Magnus was here. They'd both made it. 

_Oh, good._

That was enough of that. Alec slowly fell downward, 'til his knees hit the dirt hard enough to send a shock up his spine, and he collapsed forward onto Magnus, his arms around Magnus' shoulders and his head against Magnus' temple. 

"Alexander." Alec felt the breath leave Magnus' body, almost louder than Magnus' voice as he said his name. Alec squeezed his arms, held him tighter, and couldn't say anything at all. Magnus' arms hugged back, wrapped around Alec's middle, and only then could Alec exhale, only then could he relax.

"Let's never do that again."

"What an excellent plan." Magnus' voice wasn't quite steady, and he leaned closer, a hint of a shudder as he moved.

Alec couldn't make himself let go. Alec _never_ wanted to let go. He did though, when his knees started to go numb and Magnus shifted against the ground as if he was trying to get comfortable. Alec groaned as he sat on the ground and stared unhappily at his feet. "I think I meant to stand up, not sit down again."

Magnus _laughed,_ bright and delighted, his head falling back and his eyes closing, and it was by far the most beautiful thing Alec had ever heard. He couldn't look away, wouldn't look away, felt every part of him relax at the sight, the sound, the lift of Magnus' chin and the echo of his amusement in the air around them. 

"Come on, angel." Magnus held out a hand. 

Alec winced. Magnus pulled his hand back, a sharp jerk of his elbow as if he'd dodged a slap. 

"I'm not." Alec stopped.

Magnus' eyes widened, and he scrambled forward until was kneeling at Alec's side, his hands landing on Alec's shoulders, sliding in and up Alec's neck until he framed Alec's face. "You are to me."

Alec's breath hitched, almost a hiccup, almost a sob, and he let himself fall forward onto Magnus' shoulder. "I can't _feel_ anything. I can't _feel_ you."

"Oh." Magnus shifted his grip, a loose embrace as one hand moved slowly up and down along Alec's back. "I'm so sorry, Alexander."

Alec shook his head, but he couldn't quite get the words out. _Not your fault._

_I'm sorry I can't help you anymore._

_I'm sorry I'm a burden._

He couldn't get any words out at all. As soon as he could steady his breathing enough he pushed himself away from Magnus, turned away and rubbed at his face until he didn't think he'd burst into tears. 

Magnus reached out again, a faint brush of his fingers against the back of Alec's wrist. Alec suppressed a shudder, then turned his wrist until he could grab Magnus' hand. He thought he heard a sigh. 

"Did it work?" Alec asked in the general direction of his knees, because he couldn't seem to make himself look over at Magnus, couldn't bear to see pity or regret in his eyes.

"I think so." Alec's hand clenched tighter, and he swallowed. _Think?_ "The Border's gone entirely, and I don't know of anything besides death magic that would be powerful enough to do that."

"Neither of us are dead."

He felt Magnus exhale, long and shuddering, felt his fingers squeeze around Alec's hand. "Neither of us are dead."

Alec felt a trickle of relief, warm down his back. They'd done it. "I'm glad you're not dead."

Magnus hummed and pulled Alec back into a hug. "Very glad you're not dead. I thought I'd..."

"Magnus," Alec breathed out his name. _Never ever moving again._ "It was my choice, if it hadn't worked, it wouldn't have been your fault."

Magnus' breath stuttered, an unsteady jerk through his chest that pushed him against Alec's shoulders. Alec closed his eyes and leaned into the embrace. _I'm sorry._

The sun had warmed his back by the time Magnus pushed away from him. Alec swayed, almost followed the shift of his weight so he could lay his head in Magnus' lap, managed to straighten himself up with a shake of his head.

"You help me up and I'll help you up?" Magnus asked as he took Alec's hand again.

"I don't think it works that way." Not that Alec let go of Magnus' hand. They figured it out eventually, a clumsy push-pull until they staggered to their feet.

"Let's get you home, shall we?"

Alec made himself look up at Magnus and nod. Of course he had to go back. He swallowed past the bitter taste in his throat. "Long trip. Might as well get started."

Magnus shook his head, soft and gentle, and Alec dared to think the light in his eyes was _fond._ "If I know where I'm going, nowhere in the Forest is far."

Alec couldn't think what to say to that, couldn't figure out if he should nod or shrug or sob or say thank you. Couldn't figure out how to ask Magnus not to take him back, couldn't figure out what he should ask for instead.

Magnus tugged on his hand, and Alec stepped, and they _stepped,_ and Alec staggered to a halt. He was... he was somewhere familiar. It felt empty, but it _looked..._ He knew where he was, just by sight, just by smell. There were flowers, marigolds and marsh lilies, the faint trail of a path that he knew mostly stayed in one place. He was almost back home. He blinked. No. This wasn't his home anymore. This was where he'd met Magnus. The breath in his lungs was too cool, and it wasn't from relief. He didn't want to cross. He didn't want to _leave._

He didn't want to leave _Magnus._

He didn't move. It wasn't home, but he couldn't stay. Not here in the woods, not anymore. He was too weak, too fragile. He'd be a liability. He couldn't do that to Magnus. He couldn't. It wasn't fair. Magnus started to move his hand, and Alec wanted to clutch at him, pull him close, wrap arms and legs and heart around him until he couldn't ever escape. 

Alec let him go, and closed his eyes to hold in the heat of his tears before they overflowed. He waited, waited to hear Magnus walk away.

Magnus came closer instead, a shift of air beside him, a soft rustle of leaves beneath his feet. Alec opened his eyes. Magnus was in front of Alec, face unusually still, his expression almost blank. Alec blinked, trying to clear the damp out of his lashes, trying to figure out how to focus. Magnus tilted his head. He lifted his hand, fingertips coming to rest in the hollow of Alec's throat.

Alec swallowed, felt the fingers shift as his throat moved, felt his pulse try to leap through his skin, push against the delicate pressure. Magnus had to be able to feel it, had to know what it meant, had to recognize how much Alec _wanted_ right?

"Magnus," Alec started, his voice barely more than a whisper. He stopped as quickly as he'd started, as Magnus' eyes blazed gold as his arm dropped to his side, and the smile he gave Alec looked more like grief than amusement.

"I'm sorry." Magnus spoke when it became clear Alec couldn't. "I know I have no right, I did something unforgivable, but I hope..."

"What?" Alec jerked forward, but he didn't know what to _do._ He wanted to pull Magnus to him and never let go, but Magnus looked so stiff, so far away, he didn't know how to cross the distance. "You didn't do anything. I'm sorry I can't, I'm not. I'm sorry I can't help you anymore. I wanted..."

Magnus inhaled, hard and deep enough Alec could see the lift of his shoulders, loud enough Alec stuttered to a halt. "I used you, Alec, I had no right to take you there, to risk you, to make you lose part of yourself."

"I haven't lost anything that mattered." Magnus looked like he was going to disagree, going to turn away, and the rest of Alec's words stumbled out of his mouth as fast as he could push them free. "I won't have until you leave me."

Magnus froze, so still that Alec didn't think he was breathing. They stared at each other, and Alec watched as the pupils in Magnus' eyes slowly widened, and he felt like he was falling into them. He could feel the heat blooming beneath his skin, a terrible awful tremble of hope between the bones of his hand, aching to reach out and touch. He gave in, and had to close his eyes for just a breath at the feel of Magnus' skin against his palm, the feel of his fingers interlacing between Alec's own.

Magnus' nostrils flared. "If you don't go now, we'll devour you."

Alec heard the echoes in Magnus' voice, the thrum of the forest's magic filling his words. Alec lifted his chin, felt his breath shudder out of him. "What if I want you to?"

Magnus' eyes closed and his jaw clenched and he gripped Alec's hand so tight it hurt. "Why?"

Alec almost laughed. He'd thought himself so _obvious._ "I'm more at home here, with you, than I ever felt back there."

Magnus opened his eyes, his gaze roaming back and forth across Alec's face, down his body and up again. There was something dark in the turn of his head, something fragile in the quiet sigh of his breath. 

_Now,_ Alec realized. He ignored the faint tremble in his arms, his knees, and ducked his head to give Magnus a kiss.

His lips just brushed against Magnus' mouth when Magnus made a sound, a half a broken breath that tasted like sorrow, felt like grief. Alec's heart cracked, hard enough he was surprised he was still standing, and he tried to pull away.

Magnus whined as their lips separated, a greedy noise that restarted Alec's heart. Magnus' free hand curled tightly in the front of Alec's shirt and yanked him close enough to keep them kissing. Alec kissed him back, fierce and desperate, falling into Magnus with everything he had. He felt a groan in his chest, had to let go of Magnus' hand so he could press their bodies closer together, could grip the back of Magnus' neck, bracing him as he pushed ever deeper into the kiss. 

"Please," Alec murmured against Magnus' lips. "Please," he repeated into the air as Magnus' mouth moved across his jaw, down his neck, scalding hot as he lingered right above the collar of Alec's shirt. "Please."

"Please, what." Magnus lifted his head, his words as soft as a whisper in Alec's ear, as rough as a growl against his skin.

"Take me. Keep me. Let me stay with you."

Magnus' breath caught, and Alec could feel him shake his head, could feel when he stopped, and took a deep breath. "There is no going back from this."

Alec wrapped his arms around Magnus' shoulders, held him close as Magnus tucked his head into the curve of Alec's neck. "Tell me."

"Once the Forest takes you, you're part of it forever, no escape, no reprieve." His voice was muffled against Alec's skin, but he spoke loud enough for Alec to hear every word. 

Alec stroked a hand down Magnus' spine, back up again, tried to keep his voice steady, tried to figure out how to convince Magnus he was serious. "I'd be with you forever?" 

Magnus' trembling turned into a full body shiver, and his fingers curled, nails catching on Alec's shirt as he pulled it tight. "You'd be part of the Forest forever, I would never make you—"

"I _want_ to be with you." Alec interrupted, kept his voice as gentle as he could. "Could I? Do you want me to be with you?"

"Yes." Magnus jerked against Alec's hold, and then his body stilled, except for a small lift of his chest with each breath.

Alec closed his eyes, felt the warm wet hint of Magnus' tears against his neck, held in his own tears in answer, breathed in and out to steady the heavy thud of his heart. "Good."

"There's something else though." Magnus spoke slowly, his voice thick and very slightly damp. "Some Guardians can't leave the Forest, can't go any further past the Border than the local Witch's wards."

"Oh." Alec thought of his family's letters, of Max's memorial on the far side of the village. Realized it was already _the_ village, not _his_ village, that he'd already made up his mind. "Could someone visit us?"

Magnus shook his head, then shrugged, and pushed himself back out of Alec's arms. "Maybe? The Forest wouldn't be any kinder to your family than it is to anyone else who wanders in."

"Alright." Alec nodded. Magnus looked back, eyes searching for something in Alec's face. He couldn't seem to find it, or didn't believe it if he did, his frown still uncertain, his hands hovering between them. Alec smiled, and leaned in to kiss him again. He kept it soft and gentle, as reassuring as he could manage, resisted the desire to trace Magnus' lips with his tongue, stopped himself from pulling on the heat he could still feel curled at the base of his spine, waiting for a reason to flare back up. He pulled back, still smiling. "I'm sure, Magnus. If you want me, I'm yours."

Magnus' eyes widened, giving Alec a half-a-heartbeat's warning that he'd been believed at last, before Magnus pounced. Alec had his arms full of Magnus, felt Magnus' hands grip tight in his hair, groaned as Magnus kissed him, mouth open wide and tongue pressing hard into Alec's mouth. 

" _Alexander._ " Magnus tugged on Alec's hair, and the shock of it, of his voice, of his kiss, was almost enough to make Alec's knees give out. Magnus smiled against Alec's mouth, shaped his lips around his name, _Alexander,_ and tugged again, harder, _tugged,_ and they were tumbling backwards to land on a surprisingly thick pile of grass that hadn't been there a moment ago... 

Magnus shifted, gripped Alec's wrists and pinned them to the ground. Alec arched his back, lifted his chin, pushed up against Magnus' weight with a shudder. Some small part of his brain noticed they were somewhere new; they had _fallen,_ Magnus' magic pushing them somewhere Alec had never been before, a small gap between trees, the ground dry and solid beneath his back.

Alec didn't care where they were. He had Magnus, and nothing else mattered. 

* * *

Magnus had never felt like this, completely out of control and yet entirely at peace. He felt crazy, needy, heat surging beneath his skin as Alec rose beneath him, and at the same time he knew this was right, this was perfect. Alexander wanted to _stay._

Alec lifted his head as high as he could, his arms pulling beneath Magnus' hands, his stomach tensing beneath Magnus' thighs. Heat shimmered between them, swooped through Magnus' stomach as he leaned down to meet Alec, but Alec's lips were soft and gentle as they opened to Magnus’ mouth, his tongue warm as he traced Magnus’ lips.

Magnus gasped, surprise and hope and need, and Alec’s body curved up beneath him, and Magnus _took._

He tore their clothes away, gave them to the Forest. He tasted Alec’s skin, kissed the calluses on his hands, nipped the edges of his shoulders, licked the hard tips of his nipples, nibbled the thin fragile skin at the top of his thighs. 

Alec echoed every move Magnus made, his lips hot on Magnus’ skin, his fingers digging into his arms, his shoulders, his hips. His body was never still, always shifting closer, always leaning in to Magnus’ touch. His voice never stopped, whispering _yes_ and _please_ and _Magnus,_ over and over again. 

Until Magnus _licked_ , and Alec's voice rose, beautiful and wordless, his cry of pleasure echoing up into the sky. Magnus could feel his magic sinking beneath Alec’s skin, could feel the Forest twisting up into him, claiming him, claiming them, binding them together. He could taste Alec’s pleasure in the back of his throat, could feel an echo of Alec’s tension down his spine, and when Alec came, Magnus swallowed until he could feel it in his heartbeat, could feel it spread through the ground and the trees, could feel it spiraling through his magic, lifting it, building it, ‘til his skin was singing in anticipation. 

Magnus growled, and Alec’s body jerked. For a second he was afraid, sure that Alec would be afraid, but then Alec’s hands were in his hair and he pulled Magnus into a kiss, wide-mouthed and deep, and Magnus could hear how hard his heart was beating, could feel his joy and... 

Magnus pushed himself out of the kiss, heard himself whimper as he tucked his head against Alec’s neck, as he breathed in the warmth of his skin. He felt love, new and fragile and questioning, curling between the bonds of magic. 

The bonds that hadn’t quite set. He had to finish. He had to be inside Alec, as Alec was inside him. He wasn't sure if Alec could understand the magic yet, or if Alec just wanted, wanted as much as Magnus wanted, because he kissed his way down Magnus’ neck, down his chest, slid his hands across Magnus' ribs as if he needed more, wanted _more_. 

Magnus shuddered, and fell onto his back with a groan as Alec’s lips took him in. Alec pushed up with his tongue, and sucked, and swallowed, and his head slid down, _down,_ all the way down until Magnus bucked up into his mouth with a whine. He felt Alec's lips curve into a smile, and Magnus bit his lip on a whimper. Alec slid back up with a slick glide of his tongue. He braced himself there, elbows pressed to the ground as he looked up at Magnus through his lashes, and Magnus was gone, _gone,_ hips lifting as he thrust up into Alec’s mouth, fingers tangling in Alec’s hair as he held him there, held him where he wanted him, where he needed him. When Magnus came he yelled, low and guttural, and almost sobbed as he felt Alec swallow, _and swallow,_ lips wrapped tight so he didn’t lose a drop.

The magic flared, green and sharp behind his eyes, under his skin. Magnus could feel the magic between them, around them, spreading through the Forest, settling deep in his chest as they both collapsed to the ground. He could feel the echo of it settling in Alec, too, and for a while they just lay in the grass, watching each other, watching the sparks of magic fade and calm.

"Wow."

Alec laughed, and it was even more beautiful than Magnus had imagined, his whole face alight and smile lines deepening beside his eyes. Magnus could feel it and hear it and almost _see_ it, shivering in the air. Alec stretched and sat up, and the shadows stretched out behind him with a flap that sounded like wings.

Alec stilled and stared at Magnus. Magnus stared back for a breath, a heartbeat, a lifetime. He stood, and held out a hand. Alec took it and lifted himself onto his feet, and the shadows settled.

They were wings, misty and translucent, feathers that looked like twists of fog in the shadows beneath the trees. When the light caught in them the colors warmed, brown with glints of green and gold. Alec twisted his neck to stare at them, eyes wide. Magnus reached out a hand, let a finger trail against the spine of a feather. Alec shivered and swayed closer to Magnus and back again.

The Forest gave Magnus his eyes when he came to it; he must admit a certain relief that Alec got something else. He hadn't expected _wings._ "They're beautiful," Magnus whispered, letting a fingertip brush against another feather. He watched the way the wings shivered, the way Alec swayed again, eyes blinking slowly. They were remarkable, as rich and magical as anything else in the forest.

"I would have missed your pretty hazel eyes if you'd been changed like I was." Magnus smiled, felt warm and pleased as Alec focused on him. "Now you have pretty hazel wings too."

Alec blushed, pink spreading down across his chest, not just his cheeks. He wrinkled his nose at Magnus, then smiled back. He batted his eyes, his eyelashes making soft dark curves along his cheeks. Magnus grinned and kissed him. 

Alec made a sound that was part gasp, part moan. Magnus stumbled until he was half braced on Alec's shoulders because he could _feel_ it. He could feel himself kissing Alec, could feel an echo of Alec kissing him, and he was half-drunk and dizzy and happier than he'd ever thought possible.

And then happier still, because he could feel how happy Alec was, too.

Alec's hand were warm against his skin, curving around Magnus' neck to hold him close. Alec's wings curved around them both, wisps of smoky feathers brushing against Magnus' back. They kissed for a very long time, kissed as the sun moved across the sky and the magic settled inside them, deeper and deeper. 

Magnus sighed when the magic finally stilled. He rested his forehead against Alec's, breathed, then stepped back, letting go of Alec as he went. Alec reached out as if to pull him back, but Magnus held up a hand. "Wait."

Alec waited. Magnus _reached,_ and Alec stood, still and straight, clearly still waiting.

The Forest didn't give Alec eyes. Alec couldn't _see_ magic the way Magnus did. Magnus _touched_ the thickest braid with a fingertip, touched the magic between his heart and Alec's. Alec whimpered, and put a hand to his chest. 

Alec _felt_ the magic. Like he had with his angel blood. Like he'd felt the demon, and the fallen angel traps, and the edges of the paths through the Forest.

Alec had wings.

Could Alec feel the magic like the wind against his skin, in between his feathers?

It took a few tries, a careful tug here and there before they figured it out, figured out how Alec could _feel,_ could track angles and pressure and temperature in the same way Magnus followed the twists of light. 

Magnus grinned as they found the same curl of magic, as they _tugged_ together _,_ and a warm breeze drifted past them. 

"We did that?" Alec grinned.

Magnus nodded, grinning back. "You want to try something a little trickier?"

"Of course." Alec rocked up onto the balls of his feet, his eyes wide with delight. 

Magnus concentrated, and _reached_ again, but not for something that existed, not yet. It was a different sort of magic, not just moving but creating. 

"There's a bit of a twist?" Alec narrowed his eyes, focusing on what he could _feel_ around him rather than trying to watch how Magnus did it. 

"Exactly. You're a quick study, angel." Magnus gave one last _twist,_ and watched new clothes settle against Alec's skin. Alec startled, and his feathers spread wide and he hovered for a breath before he landed. Magnus giggled. "Whoops?"

Magnus _reached_ again, slow enough Alec could track the magic again, and _twisted_ and dressed himself as well.

"Ruin a perfectly good view, why don't you." Alec bit his lip and stared at Magnus' shirt. Which suddenly turned _blue,_ as blue as the darkening sky above them.

Magnus gasped, his delight only partly exaggerated, and he turned Alec's formerly drab grey shirt as pink as the first streaks of sunset forming behind him. Alec laughed, and Magnus' heart stuttered. Alec reached for him, picked him up and spun them in a circle, and they lifted up a little more than a foot before falling back down with a heavy thump. Alec rolled his eyes, but Magnus could still hear the laughter in his voice. "That's going to take some practice."

"We have plenty of time for practice." Magnus smoothed his hands across Alec's chest, enjoyed how warm he felt, even through his new shirt. "Plenty of time for everything."

Alec sighed, a quiet happy sound, and rested his forehead against Magnus', his breath warming the air in the small space between them. "I feel like I'm getting way more out of this deal than the Forest."

Magnus startled, almost laughed, almost snorted, and barely managed to turn his head before he coughed into Alec's face. "Well, we'll have to wait and see what the Forest needs from us before we decide on that, I think. You haven't seen it in one of its _moods_ yet. It's occasionally rather like an omnipotent toddler, trying to do things that aren't good for it."

Alec's head tilted back at that description, but he kept his smile. "Doesn't matter. I've got you. Everything else is worth it."

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
